A team of Harvard scientists and engineers has demonstrated a new type of battery that could fundamentally transform the way electricity is stored on the grid, making power from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar far more economical and reliable.

The novel battery technology is reported in a paper published in Nature on January 9. Under the OPEN 2012 program, the Harvard team received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to develop the innovative grid-scale battery and plans to work with ARPA-E to catalyze further technological and market breakthroughs over the next several years.


The paper reports a metal-free flow battery that relies on the electrochemistry of naturally abundant, inexpensive, small organic (carbon-based) molecules called quinones, which are similar to molecules that store energy in plants and animals.

The mismatch between the availability of intermittent wind or sunshine and the variability of demand is the biggest obstacle to getting a large fraction of our electricity from renewable sources. A cost-effective means of storing large amounts of electrical energy could solve this problem.

The battery was designed, built, and tested in the laboratory of Michael J. Aziz, Gene and Tracy Sykes Professor of Materials and Energy Technologies at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Roy G. Gordon, Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Materials Science, led the work on the synthesis and chemical screening of molecules. Alán Aspuru-Guzik, Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, used his pioneering high-throughput molecular screening methods to calculate the properties of more than 10,000 quinone molecules in search of the best candidates for the battery.

Flow batteries store energy in chemical fluids contained in external tanks -- as with fuel cells -- instead of within the battery container itself. The two main components -- the electrochemical conversion hardware through which the fluids are flowed (which sets the peak power capacity), and the chemical storage tanks (which set the energy capacity) -- may be independently sized. Thus the amount of energy that can be stored is limited only by the size of the tanks. The design permits larger amounts of energy to be stored at lower cost than with traditional batteries.

By contrast, in solid-electrode batteries, such as those commonly found in cars and mobile devices, the power conversion hardware and energy capacity are packaged together in one unit and cannot be decoupled. Consequently they can maintain peak discharge power for less than an hour before being drained, and are therefore ill suited to store intermittent renewables.

"Our studies indicate that one to two days' worth of storage is required for making solar and wind dispatchable through the electrical grid," said Aziz.

To store 50 hours of energy from a 1-megawatt power capacity wind turbine (50 megawatt-hours), for example, a possible solution would be to buy traditional batteries with 50 megawatt-hours of energy storage, but they'd come with 50 megawatts of power capacity. Paying for 50 megawatts of power capacity when only 1 megawatt is necessary makes little economic sense.

For this reason, a growing number of engineers have focused their attention on flow battery technology. But until now, flow batteries have relied on chemicals that are expensive or difficult to maintain, driving up the energy storage costs.

The active components of electrolytes in most flow batteries have been metals. Vanadium is used in the most commercially advanced flow battery technology now in development, but its cost sets a rather high floor on the cost per kilowatt-hour at any scale. Other flow batteries contain precious metal electrocatalysts such as the platinum used in fuel cells.

The new flow battery developed by the Harvard team already performs as well as vanadium flow batteries, with chemicals that are significantly less expensive, and with no precious metal electrocatalyst.

"The whole world of electricity storage has been using metal ions in various charge states but there is a limited number that you can put into solution and use to store energy, and none of them can economically store massive amounts of renewable energy," Gordon said. "With organic molecules, we introduce a vast new set of possibilities. Some of them will be terrible and some will be really good. With these quinones we have the first ones that look really good."

Aspuru-Guzik noted that the project is very well aligned with the White House Materials Genome Initiative. "This project illustrates what the synergy of high-throughput quantum chemistry and experimental insight can do," he said. "In a very quick time period, our team honed in to the right molecule. Computational screening, together with experimentation, can lead to discovery of new materials in many application domains."

Quinones are abundant in crude oil as well as in green plants. The molecule that the Harvard team used in its first quinone-based flow battery is almost identical to one found in rhubarb. The quinones are dissolved in water, which prevents them from catching fire.

To back up a commercial wind turbine, a large storage tank would be needed, possibly located in a below-grade basement, said co-lead author Michael Marshak, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Or if you had a whole field of turbines or large solar farm, you could imagine a few very large storage tanks.

The same technology could also have applications at the consumer level, Marshak said. "Imagine a device the size of a home heating oil tank sitting in your basement. It would store a day's worth of sunshine from the solar panels on the roof of your house, potentially providing enough to power your household from late afternoon, through the night, into the next morning, without burning any fossil fuels."

"The Harvard team's results published in Nature demonstrate an early, yet important technical achievement that could be critical in furthering the development of grid-scale batteries," said ARPA-E Program Director John Lemmon. "The project team's result is an excellent example of how a small amount of catalytic funding from ARPA-E can help build the foundation to hopefully turn scientific discoveries into low-cost, early-stage energy technologies."

Team leader Aziz said the next steps in the project will be to further test and optimize the system that has been demonstrated on the bench top and bring it toward a commercial scale. "So far, we've seen no sign of degradation after more than 100 cycles, but commercial applications require thousands of cycles," he said. He also expects to achieve significant improvements in the underlying chemistry of the battery system. "I think the chemistry we have right now might be the best that's out there for stationary storage and quite possibly cheap enough to make it in the marketplace," he said. "But we have ideas that could lead to huge improvements."

By the end of the three-year development period, Connecticut-based Sustainable Innovations, LLC, a collaborator on the project, expects to deploy demonstration versions of the organic flow battery contained in a unit the size of a horse trailer. The portable, scaled-up storage system could be hooked up to solar panels on the roof of a commercial building, and electricity from the solar panels could either directly supply the needs of the building or go into storage and come out of storage when there's a need. Sustainable Innovations anticipates playing a key role in the product's commercialization by leveraging its ultra-low cost electrochemical cell design and system architecture already under development for energy storage applications.

"You could theoretically put this on any node on the grid," Aziz said. "If the market price fluctuates enough, you could put a storage device there and buy electricity to store it when the price is low and then sell it back when the price is high. In addition, you might be able to avoid the permitting and gas supply problems of having to build a gas-fired power plant just to meet the occasional needs of a growing peak demand."This technology could also provide very useful backup for off-grid rooftop solar panels -- an important advantage considering some 20 percent of the world's population does not have access to a power distribution network.

William Hogan, Raymond Plank Professor of Global Energy Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, and one of the world's foremost experts on electricity markets, is helping the team explore the economic drivers for the technology.Trent M. Molter, President and CEO of Sustainable Innovations, LLC, provides expertise on implementing the Harvard team's technology into commercial electrochemical systems.

"The intermittent renewables storage problem is the biggest barrier to getting most of our power from the sun and the wind," Aziz said. "A safe and economical flow battery could play a huge role in our transition off fossil fuels to renewable electricity. I'm excited that we have a good shot at it."

In addition to Aziz, Marshak, Aspuru-Guzik, and Gordon, the co-lead author of the Nature paper was Brian Huskinson, a graduate student with Aziz; coauthors included research associate Changwon Suh and postdoctoral researcher Süleyman Er in Aspuru-Guzik's group; Michael Gerhardt, a graduate student with Aziz; Cooper Galvin, a Pomona College undergraduate; and Xudong Chen, a postdoctoral fellow in Gordon's group.

This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (OCI-1053575), an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and the Fellowships for Young Energy Scientists program of the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter, which is part of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).

Researchers found that the most common emotions trigger strong bodily sensations, and the bodily maps of these sensations were topographically different for different emotions. The sensation patterns were, however, consistent across different West European and East Asian cultures, highlighting that emotions and their corresponding bodily sensation patterns have a biological basis.

"Emotions adjust not only our mental, but also our bodily states. This way the prepare us to react swiftly to the dangers, but also to the opportunities such as pleasurable social interactions present in the environment. Awareness of the corresponding bodily changes may subsequently trigger the conscious emotional sensations, such as the feeling of happiness," tells assistant professor Lauri Nummenmaa from Aalto University.

"The findings have major implications for our understanding of the functions of emotions and their bodily basis. On the other hand, the results help us to understand different emotional disorders and provide novel tools for their diagnosis."

The research was carried out on line, and over 700 individuals from Finland, Sweden and Taiwan took part in the study. The researchers induced different emotional states in their Finnish and Taiwanese participants. Subsequently the participants were shown with pictures of human bodies on a computer, and asked to colour the bodily regions whose activity they felt increasing or decreasing.

The research was funded by European Research Council (ERC), The Academy of Finland and the Aalto University (aivoAALTO project)

The results were published on 31 December, 2013 in the scientific journal Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences
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GSAT-14 is an Indian communications satellite which was succesfully launched in 5 January 2014. It is expected to replace the GSAT-3 satellite, which was launched in 2004. GSAT-14 will be launched by a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk.II, incorporating an Indian-built cryogenic engine on the third stage.
It will be an acid test for India as it seeks to prove the design, realisation and sustained firing of its indigenously built cryogenic engine. There is pressure on the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to produce a winner because of two back-to-back failures of the GSLV flights in 2010 - the first, with an indigenous cryogenic engine, on April 15 and the next, with a Russian cryogenic engine, on December 25.

The 29-hour countdown for the launch of India's heavy rocket geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle-development 5 (GSLV-D5) with the indigenous engine had started on Saturday 11.18 a.m. at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

The Rs.356 crore launch mission has twin purpose - to flight test the cryogenic engine designed and built by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and to put in orbit communication satellite GSAT-14.

 The launch is scheduled for 4.18 p.m. Sunday. The rocket port is located about 80 km from Chennai.A cryogenic engine is more efficient as it provides more thrust for every kilogram of propellant burnt.ISRO was to launch this rocket last August but aborted it just hours before the deadline as the fuel started leaking from its second stage or engine.According to the ISRO official, the second stage was replaced with a new one built with a different metal.

"We also replaced some critical components in the four strap-on motors of the first stage as a matter of precaution," said the official.The successful flight of this rocket is crucial for India as it will be the first step towards building rockets that can carry heavier payloads, up to four tonnes.

GSLV-D5 at the Second Launch Pad (Umbilical Tower) in Sriharikota. (Photo courtesy ISRO)

For ISRO perfecting the cryogenic engine technology is crucial as it can save precious foreign exchange by launching communication satellites by itself than depending on foreign rockets.

This will be the first mission of GSLV in the last four years, after two such rockets failed in 2010. One of the GSLV rockets flew with an Indian cryogenic engine, and the other one with a Russian engine.

The GSLV is a three stage/engine rocket. The first stage is fired with solid fuel, the second with liquid fuel and the third is the cryogenic engine.

The successful flight of this rocket is crucial for India as it will be the first step towards building rockets that can carry heavier payloads of up to four tonnes.

ISRO is planning to launch an upgraded version of GSLV Mark III rocket soon with a dummy payload.

The design payload capacity of GSLV Mark III is four tonnes. However, the rocket will not have the cryogenic engine which is under development. The mission is mainly to test the rocket's other systems and its aerodynamic stability.


SOURCE: INDIA TODAY

Mankind always has, and always will, fight wars. And in order to fight said wars, man needed weapons. Using whatever skills and resources they had, man built tools that would slash, smash, pierce and tear their enemies. Every nation had weapons that made their armies unique. Today when we talk about ancient weapons we immediately think swords, spears, bows and axes. But I find interest in weapons that strike me as out of the norm. This list is an assortment of weapons that have designs, backgrounds or usages that I find rather out of the ordinary. If you feel like anything is excluded or missing from the list, remember there exists a comment section for you to do with as you will!

# 10 Mere Club

Used by the Māori tribes of New Zealand, this simple-looking, yet solid, club was built from nephrite jade. Strangely enough, the Māori used the 12-20 inch club for jabbing and thrusting instead of swinging downward blows in the way that most other clubs are used. To the Māori, the mere was a very spiritual weapon. They named their mere clubs and passed them down through generations. They even believed that the clubs contained a mana (spiritual force) of their own. The Māori revered their mere clubs greatly. They were a symbol of leadership, and if any mere that was considered important by a tribe was misplaced, great efforts were taken by the tribe to make sure the mere was located and returned to its respective owner.

# 9 Hook Swords

Perhaps the most well-known on this list, the Chinese hook swords were wielded by the normally passive Shoalin monks of northern China. Beautifully and artistically designed, the blades were curved into a hook shape at the end which allowed the user to connect the blades by the tip and wield them as a single, long-ranged weapon. The crescent shaped guards were excellent at blocking blows as well as slashing enemies who got too close. The ends of the hilts were sharpened into daggers for stabbing at close range. These swords measured from 4-6 feet from the top of the hook to the end of the sharpened hilt. The blades saw most of their usage from civilians, as the Chinese military did not use them in any of their armies.

# 8 Kpinga

The kpinga was a throwing knife that was used by experienced warriors of the Azande tribe. The Zande people were residents of Nubia, a region in Africa composed of northern Sudan and southern Egypt. The knife (also known by its nickname, the Hunga Munga) was up to 22 inches long and had three blades that extended from the center. The blade closest to the handle is in the shape of a man’s genitals, and represented the masculine power of its owner. The alignment of the blades on the kpinga drastically increased the chances of impaling a target on contact. When the owner of the weapon was married, he presented the kpinga as a gift to the family of his wife.

# 7 Macuahuitl

The macuahuitl was basically a large, sword-shaped piece of wood, with razor-sharp pieces of obsidian embedded in the sides. Since the macuahuitl lacked a sharp point, it couldn’t be used as a stabbing weapon; however the jagged rows of obsidian gave the weapon a vicious tearing power that could cut deep lacerations in the enemy. The wood itself is heavy and strong enough to clobber opponents, thus enabling the Aztec to capture the foe alive to be used in their famous ritual sacrifices. There have been accounts of maquahuitls being able to decapitate horses, which is impressive, for a horse’s head is a good deal thicker than that of an adult human being.

# 6 Scissor

This rather odd-looking weapon was used in the arenas by the gladiators of the ancient Roman Empire. Interestingly enough, the gladiators who wielded the scissor in combat were also known as scissors. The metal casing at the bottom formed a long tube that covered the gladiator’s arm, allowing the weapon to easily block and parry, as well as counterattack. Made from hardened steel, the scissor measured up to one and a half feet long. It is surprisingly light, weighing in at an easy 5-7 pounds; this allowed the scissor to be wielded with a good amount of speed. The scissor’s unique shape and design made it a crowd favorite.

# 5 Chakram

Don’t be fooled, the chakram is not something you would want to play frisbee with. Unlike the frisbee, the chakram was often thrown vertically rather than horizontally. The deadly circle of metal was up to a foot in diameter. It’s extremely sharp edge ensured that the chakram could slice off arms and legs with ease. This weapon originated from India, where it was used extensively by the high ranking Indian Sikhs. Much like a distant relative, the shrunken, the chakram could be stacked one on the other and thrown repeatedly. One interesting throwing method used by professional warriors was to spin the chakram on their index finger, and then, with a sharp flick of the wrist, launch the whirring blade at their opponent.

# 4 Chu Ko Nu

Another Chinese weapon, the chu ko nu was basically an ancestor to the automatic rifle – it sacrificed range and power for a quick reload time. The wooden case on the top of the crossbow held 10 crossbow bolts which fell into place when the rectangular lever on the back was pulled back after firing a bolt. One interesting fact is that the chu ko nu last saw its use in the Sino-Japanese wars of 1894-1895, years after the rise of firearms. The crossbow could fire on average a total of 10 bolts within 15 seconds. Which, when compared to the reload speed of normal bows and crossbows, is a great improvement. For added effectiveness, some of the bolts were tipped with poison from the deadly aconite flower, also known as wolfsbane.

# 3 Nest of Bees

Now I have to hand it to the Chinese, their weapons have made four entries on my list. Third place is taken by the nest of bees, or flying fire. Basically it was a wooden container filled with tubes in the shape of a hexagon, which, when viewed from the front, gave the weapon the appearance of a large honeycomb. Inside each of the tubes was a rocket propelled arrow. The rockets launched the arrows with more power and range than that of a traditional bow. Up to 32 arrows could be launched from a nest at once. The Chinese would fire thousands of bees’ nests at once, killing plenty of enemies within seconds.

# 2 Katar

This Indian weapon gave its owner the claws of wolverine, minus the strength and cutting power of adamantium. The katar at first glance has a single blade, however when a trigger on the h-shaped handle was activated, the blade would split into three, one on the middle and one on each side. The three blades not only made the weapon more effective at stabbing and slashing, but they also intimidated and/or startled the opponent. The blade’s positioning on the handle also allowed it to easily block attacks. Its unusual design has yet another purpose – the triple blades could easily stab through all kinds of Asian armor with ease.

# 1 Zhua

One look at this incredibly odd-looking device was more than enough to convince me that it deserved the number one place on this list. Yet another Chinese weapon, the zhua’s conspicuous iron “hand” at the end had sharp claw-like nails that would impale flesh, and then tear it off from the body. The sheer weight of the zhua was enough to kill the opponent, but the claws made it even deadlier. When wielded by a professional, it could be used to pull mounted soldiers off their horse. But the main use of the zhua was to pull off the shields of enemies, leaving them exposed to the clawed hand of iron.

Courtesy : ISRO

Fossils are often stored in plaster casts, or jackets, to protect them from damage. Getting information about a fossil typically requires the removal of the plaster and all the sediment surrounding it, which can lead to loss of material or even destruction of the fossil itself.German researchers studied the feasibility of using CT and 3-D printers to nondestructively separate fossilized bone from its surrounding sediment matrix and produce a 3-D print of the fossilized bone itself.

\"The most important benefit of this method is that it is non-destructive, and the risk of harming the fossil is minimal," said study author Ahi Sema Issever, M.D., from the Department of Radiology at Charité Campus Mitte in Berlin. "Also, it is not as time-consuming as conventional preparation."

Dr. Issever and colleagues applied the method to an unidentified fossil from the Museum für Naturkunde, a major natural history museum in Berlin. The fossil and others like it were buried under rubble in the basement of the museum after a World War II bombing raid. Since then, museum staff members have had difficulty sorting and identifying some of the plaster jackets.Researchers performed CT on the unidentified fossil with a 320-slice multi-detector system. The different attenuation, or absorption of radiation, through the bone compared with the surrounding matrix enabled clear depiction of a fossilized vertebral body.

After studying the CT scan and comparing it to old excavation drawings, the researchers were able to trace the fossil's origin to the Halberstadt excavation, a major dig from 1910 to 1927 in a clay pit south of Halberstadt, Germany. In addition, the CT study provided valuable information about the condition and integrity of the fossil, showing multiple fractures and destruction of the front rim of the vertebral body.Furthermore, the CT dataset helped the researchers build an accurate reconstruction of the fossil with selective laser sintering, a technology that uses a high-powered laser to fuse together materials to make a 3-D object.

Dr. Issever noted that the findings come at a time when advances in technology and cheaper availability of 3-D printers are making them more common as a tool for research. Digital models of the objects can be transferred rapidly among researchers, and endless numbers of exact copies may be produced and distributed, greatly advancing scientific exchange, Dr. Issever said. The technology also potentially enables a global interchange of unique fossils with museums, schools and other settings.

"The digital dataset and, ultimately, reproductions of the 3-D print may easily be shared, and other research facilities could thus gain valuable informational access to rare fossils, which otherwise would have been restricted," Dr. Issever said. "Just like Gutenberg's printing press opened the world of books to the public, digital datasets and 3-D prints of fossils may now be distributed more broadly, while protecting the original intact fossil."

ndia launched its first mission to Mars this afternoon from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh, beginning a 300-day journey to study the Martian atmosphere.

Mangalyaan, which means "Mars craft" in Hindi, is the size of a small car and is scheduled to begin orbiting Mars by September, searching for methane and signs of minerals.

The satellite is golden in colour and is being carried by a rocket much smaller than American or Russian equivalents.

Lacking the power to fly directly, the 350-tonne launch vehicle will orbit Earth for nearly a month, building up the necessary velocity to break free from our planet's gravitational pull.

Only then will it begin the second stage of its nine-month journey which will test India's scientists to the full, five years after they sent a probe called Chandrayaan to the moon.

The total cost of the project is 450 crores, one sixth of the cost of a Mars probe set to be launched by NASA in 13 days.

Only the United States, Europe, and Russia have sent probes that have orbited or landed on Mars. Probes to Mars have a high failure rate. A similar mission by China failed to leave Earth's orbit in 2011.

"This is a technology demonstration project, a mission that will announce to the world India has the capability to reach as far away as Mars, "said K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space and Research Organization

Source: ndtv.com

Computer Sketch At its glory...

2013 Nobel Laureates

Physiology or Medicine:
James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof

Physics:
François Englert and Peter Higgs

Chemistry:
Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel

Literature:
Alice Munro

Peace:
 Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons 

Economic Sciences:
Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, Robert J. Shiller

Sachin Tendulkar started off with centuries in his debut matches in the Ranji, Duleep and Irani Trophy. No other domestic cricketer has been able to break this record till now.

Sachin Tendulkar was done in by a sharp bouncer from Zimbabwe’s Henry Olonga in a league match at Sharjah in 1998. In the final match against the same opposition, Tendulkar had his revenge as he smashed the bowler all around the ground and belted an unbeaten 118 runs.

Sachin Tendulkar is a big fan of tennis legend John McEnroe. In his formative years, McEnroe was Tendulkar’s idol. The young Sachin pleaded his parents to get a similar headband and wristbands like McEnroe. Also take one look at his childhood snaps and the McEnroe styled shock of hair on his head tells everything.

Sachin Tendulkar was named after the great musician SD Burman. Sachin’s father’s, Ramesh Tendulkar was a big fan of SD’s music.

 Sachin Tendulkar was led onto the field on his Ranji debut by his then captain, Ravi Shastri.

Sachin Tendulkar was gifted a Ferrari 360 Modena by F1 champion Michael Schumacher in 2002. Ferrari presented the car to Sachin in honour of him equalling Don Bradman’s record of 29 Test centuries.

Sachin Tendulkar spoke to his favourite music star, Mark Knopfler, the lead guitarist of the rock band, Dire Straits for the very first time during a programme he was doing for the ESPN network. It was Sachin’s birthday and it turned out to be a happy surprise for him.

Sachin Tendulkar went to watch the movie Roja in 1995 with a beard and disguise. And it all went wrong when his glasses fell off and the crowd in the cinema hall recognised him.

 Sachin Tendulkar returned from a four-month tour of Australia after the 1992 World Cup and immediately turned up to represent Kirti College in April 1992. That’s some commitment from a cricketer who was already a superstar by then.

 Sachin Tendulkar uses a very heavy bat at the crease, weighing 3.2lbs. Only South Africa's Lance Klusener used a heavier bat in world cricket.

Sachin Tendulkar wanted to become a fast bowler, but when he was rejected by Dennis Lillee’s MRF Pace Foundation in 1987. Lillee told the young Tendulkar to focus on his batting. The other youngster turned away by Lillee along with Tendulkar was Sourav Ganguly.

Sachin Tendulkar fielded for Pakistan as a substitute during a one-day practice match against India at the Brabourne Stadium in 1988.

Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli set a world record partnership of 664 runs in the Harris Shield, an inter-school tournament in Mumbai. Tendulkar scored an unbeaten 326 runs and reportedly the mammoth stand literally drove the opposition to tears.

Sachin Tendulkar at the age of 19 became the youngest Indian to play in county cricket.

Sachin Tendulkar had to wait for 79 matches for his first ODI century and by that time he had scored seven Test hundreds.

Sachin Tendulkar was the first batsman to be given out by the Third-umpire. In 1992, on the second day of the Durban Test, a Jonty Rhodes throw caught Tendulkar short of the crease. After watching TV replays he was adjudged out.

7. Sachin Tendulkar made his Test debut in 1989 against Pakistan in Karachi. In the same match, Pakistani pacer Waqar Younis also played his first Test match ever.

Sachin Tendulkar went to Sharadashram Vidyamandir School only after coach Ramakant Achrekar saw his batting potential. Achrekar was the cricket coach of Sharadashram Vidyamandir School. Before enrolling at Shardashram, Tendulkar went to New England School of Indian Education Society in East Bandra

The first brand which Sachin Tendulkar endorsed was the health drink ‘Boost.’ He was seen alongside Kapil Dev in many of their ad films, the start of which happened in 1990.

English fast bowler Allan Mulally playing in his debut Test against India complained that Sachin Tendulkar was batting with a bat broader than the normal willow. That’s how much Tendulkar had psyched the bowler with his brilliant batting.

Sachin Tendulkar was without a bat contract until the start of the 1996 Cricket World Cup. At the end of the tournament a famous tyre manufacturer sponsored his willow.

Sachin Tendulkar was a big bully in the school. Whenever his friend introduced him to a new kid in the school, Tendulkar would invariably ask, “Will I be able to beat him?’ He was famous for picking up a fight.

Sachin Tendulkar asked his friend to dip the tennis ball in a bucket of water and hurl at him so that he could find out whether he was hitting ball from the middle of his bat.

Sachin Tendulkar has been granted the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Arjuna Award and Padma Shri by Indian government. He is the only Indian cricketer to get all of them.

Sachin Tendulkar played for Yorkshire what was so special about it? Well, he was the county side’s first overseas professional ever. He averaged 46.52 with the bat in his stint with the county team.

Sachin Tendulkar's wife Anjali does not eat or drink whenever the Master is at the crease.

Sachin Tendulkar was most fascinated by band-aids. A hint of a wound and he would plaster it all over the injury.

Sachin Tendulkar loves collecting perfumes and watches.

Sachin Tendulkar batted in his debut Test against Pakistan wearing the pads gifted to him by Sunil Gavaskar

In 1992 Sachin became the youngest cricketer to reach a 1000 runs in Test cricket

Ashley Giles was the first bowler to get him stumped out in Test cricket in 2002

Sachin’s record of five test centuries before he turned 20 is a current world record.

Tendulkar is the only player who has 40 wkts and more than 11000 runs in Tests

Sachin Tendulkar has the most number of Stadium Appearances: 90 different Grounds

35. Sachin Tendulkar with Sourav Ganguly hold the world record for the maximum number of runs scored by the opening partnership. They have put together 6,271 runs in 128 matches.

36. He has 20 century partnerships for opening pair with Sourav Ganguly is a world record.

37. Tendulkar has scored most Centuries in a calendar year: 9 ODI centuries in 1998.

38. In 1998 he made 1,894 ODI runs, a record for ODI runs by any batsman in a calendar year.