Facebook owner and youngest Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg bought home in Palo Alto

Mark Zuckerberg is, at age 26, on the young side for a first-time home buyer these days. But the Facebook cofounder and chief executive isn’t exactly stretching financially to make his first purchase. Valued at $13.5 billion, and with a persona made famous by the Oscar-winning film The Social Network, Zuckerberg recently plunked down a relatively paltry $7 million for his first home.

The restored historic Palo Alto, Calif. Abode encompasses 5,617 square feet on a 17,100 square-foot plot. It includes five bedrooms, five and a half baths, a banquet-size dining room, a music alcove and glassed-in porch. The backyard has a saltwater pool, a spa, an outdoor gazebo with a wood-burning fireplace and a carport. The lot, located on Edgewood Drive in the Crescent Park neighborhood, is shielded from nosy neighbors and gawkers by a wall and citrus trees. Crescent Park itself is a high-end neighborhood where median single-family homes went for an average of $1.9 million in February, according to the Zillow Home Value Index.

The young billionaire’s new pad hails from an earlier structure erected by William A. Newell, a physician and politician who helped establish and govern the area in the late 19th century. It was razed and rebuilt by another physician in 1903. Since then, it changed hands roughly seven times, going through several remodelings, before being acquired by the social media entrepreneur.

The property was listed through Sherry Bucolo of Alain Pinel Realtors. Both Bucolo and Facebook declined to comment on the sale, but public records indicate the deal closed in mid-March. As with most real estate transactions involving rich and famous homebuyers, the sale was conducted through a third party LLC.

The young billionaire has long been a fan of renting and of relatively modest digs. His last two places were rentals in the College Terrace neighborhood of Palo Alto, both of which were close to Facebook’s offices and significantly smaller than the new home.

Zuckerberg, who ranks 52nd on Forbes’ list of the World’s Billionaires, paid $1 million more than the previously listed asking price of $5.85 million. The $7 million paid is about what the home is valued in the expensive 94301 zip code, according to Zillow.com.

That might seem like a hefty price tag to many middle Americans, but it’s pee wee league among billionaires. Yuri Milner, a venture capital billionaire and Facebook investor, shelled out $100 million for an 11 acre, 25,000 square foot estate in the area earlier this year. In April, news broke that Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s wealthiest billionaire, had snatched up a London penthouse for $221 million, the most ever paid for an apartment anywhere.

Remain happy forever!!! Gene for the Happiness have been identified

If you wants to remain happy forver in your life now it seems it is possible. According to the TG daily,Scientists have for the first time discovered a 'happiness gene', which works by regulating the transport of serotonin in the brain.

It forms the first direct link between a specific genetic condition and a person’s happiness, as measured by their satisfaction with life.

Behavioural economist Jan-Emmanuel De Neve of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) examined genetic data from more than 2,500 participants in the US National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, examining which functional variant of the 5-HTT gene they possessed.

This gene helps control serotonin transporters in neuron cell walls, and has a variation, or allele, which can be either long or short. The long version is more efficient, resulting in more serotonin transporters in the cell membrane.

The team asked subjects how satisfied they were with theirlife as a whole. There were five possible answers: very satisfied, satisfied, dissatisfied, very dissatisfied or none of the above.

The results showed that nearly 70 percent of those with the efficient (long-long) version of the gene were either very satisfied or satisfied with their life – compared to just 19 per cent for those with the less efficient short-short form.

Conversely, 26 per cent of those with the short-short allele were dissatisfied, compared with only 20 per cent of those with the long-long variant.

Even possessing one long allele increased the likelihood of being very satisfied with life by 8.5 per cent, the team found.

"It has long been suspected that this gene plays a role in mental health but this is the first study to show that it is instrumental in shaping our individual happiness levels," says De Neve.

“The results of our study suggest a strong link between happiness and this functional variation in the 5-HTT gene."

He points out that other genes - as well as one's life experiences - also influence a person's happiness levels. But, he says, "This finding helps to explain why we each have a unique baseline level of happiness and why some people tend to be naturally happier than others."

Facebook & Google in talks to buy Skype!! Lets see who will won the bid!!!

In a rat race to the finish, both Facebook and Google are reportedly thinking about purchasing Skype after the company delayed its initial public offering.

According to Reuters, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has already kicked off an internal discussion about buying Skype, or possibly forming a potential joint venture. Similarly, Google is apparently engaged in talks about a joint venture with Skype.

Skype is currently valued at $3 billion to $4 billion with its IPO expected to raise about $1 billion.

Recently, the value of the service has been somewhat undercut by rival offerings from both Google and Apple who both offer video conferencing services. 

Discussions with both Facebook and Google are still in early stages, and it’s unclear which option Skype favors.

The IPO is slated to take place in the second half of 2011, but the company is staying open to the possibility of working with other companies apart from Google and Facebook.

Both Skype and Google declined to comment, while Facebook was not immediately available for comment.

"When a company is not going public and it has been on file for a long time, one way or another something is going to happen," an unnamed source told Reuters. 

Days On Earth Have Shortened Because of Japan Earthquake

The massive earthquake that rocked Japan on 11th March has not only devastated human life and economy, but has also shortened the length of a day on the Earth. It has also shifted the mass of the planet and shortened the day of the Earth by a fraction.

A scientific analysis has shown that the intense temblor generated from the earthquake has increased the spin of the Earth. As a result, the length of the 24 hours day has become shortened by 1.8 microseconds. This has been observed by Richard Gross, a noted geophysicist working at NASA.

A microsecond is considered to be the millionth of a second. Since the distribution of the mass of the Earth has changed, the Earth is expected to rotate a bit faster and this will obviously shorten the length of the day by 1.8 microseconds. The earthquake in Japan has made the mass of the Earth get shifted towards the Equator.

Initial data collected by NASA suggested that the Japan earthquake has moved the island by 8 feet. The Japan earthquake 2011 has also shifted the figure axis of the earth by 6.5 inches, which is approximately 17 centimeters. Figure axis is very important as the mass of the Earth is balanced around it.

However, this is not for the first time that a major tremble has changed the length of the day. Massive earthquakes held in the past have also changed the length of the day by microseconds. The massive earthquake held in China last year has also shortened the length of the day by 1.26 microseconds.

Japan earthquake 2011 is the largest ever earthquake recorded in Japan and it has also been recorded as the fifth largest earthquake to strike on this earth since the year 1900. The earthquake has already expected to have killed 10,000 people and has destroyed the country’s power supply and the economy as well.

Apple's iOS 5.0 reportedly coming out this Fall

According to TG Daily Even though the rumor mill still suggests that Apple will release the iPhone 5 in the summer, and initially unveil version 5.0 of the iOS software this spring, there's now speculation that the new operating system won't be available for the devices until the third quarter.

That would mean the iPhone 5 will initially ship with an earlier version of iOS than version 5.0, although it'll be easily upgrades to the latest software when it becomes available.

Tech Crunch, which cited two unnamed, but "solid," sources, reports that Apple will reveal the latest iteration of its mobile OS in June at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference.

Historically, when Apple unveils a new version of iOS, the actual release isn't far away. But it looks like that won't be the case here.

It's still unclear whether iOS 5.0 will be available for all iPhone and iPad products, or if some of the earlier models will be shunted out of the latest software. Suggested updates to the operating system revolve mainly around cloud-based computing and storage solutions, as well as a stronger emphasis on location-based features.

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Scientists of MIT develops low-cost artificial leaf which can produce electricity!!!

 According to TG Daily MIT scientists have created what they say is the world's first practical 'artificial leaf', a solar cell the size of a playing card that mimics photosynthesis.

"A practical artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades. We believe we have done it," says team leader Daniel Nocera.

"The artificial leaf shows particular promise as an inexpensive source of electricity for homes of the poor in developing countries. Our goal is to make each home its own power station."

Placed in a single gallon of water in bright sunlight, the device could produce enough electricity to supply a house in a developing country with electricity for a day, Nocera said.

It wrks by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, which are stored in a fuel celland used to produce electricity.

Artificial leaves have been around for a while - indeed, the first was created more than ten years ago. But existing versions tend to be expensive and have a short lifespan.

Nocera's new leaf is made of inexpensive materials that are widely available, works under simple conditions and is highly stable, he says. In laboratory studies, a prototype operated continuously for more than 45 hours without a drop in performance.

It's based on several newly-discovered catalysts, made of nickel and cobalt, that can efficiently split water into hydrogen and oxygen, under normal conditions. Right now, Nocera says his leaf is about 10 times more efficient at carrying out photosynthesis than a natural leaf - but says he's optimistic that he can boost efficiency much further.

"Nature is powered by photosynthesis, and I think that the future world will be powered by photosynthesis as well, in the form of this artificial leaf," he says.