How does Sachin Tendulkar do it?

How does Sachin Tendulkar do it? How does a 36-year-old cricketer stay at the top of the game for 20 years? How does he retain this insatiable hunger for achievement after scoring more than 30,000 runs in the long (Test) and shorter (50 over) versions of the game?

Cricket fans are asking these questions again after Tendulkar created history by firing the first double century in one-day internationals.

It was an unbelievable innings of brutal finesse - he smacked 25 fours and three sixes and batted just 147 balls to score 200. He simply toyed with South Africa's formidable bowlers.

"Take a bow master!", "You little champion!", gasped the commentators as Tendulkar walked back to the pavilion and the crowds went delirious.

"If anybody is deserving of this feat, it is Tendulkar and nobody else," gushed another commentator, and then ran out of words.

You are indeed lost for words trying to explain the genius, elegance and sheer power of one of the greatest cricketers ever born, but more so after his breathtaking display at Gwalior on Wednesday.

I think the best tribute to Tendulkar's genius came from former cricketer and present day guru of cricket writing Peter Roebuck.

"Viv Richards could terrorise an attack with pitiless brutality, Lara could dissect bowlers with surgical and magical strokes, Tendulkar can take an attack apart with towering simplicity. From the start he had an uncanny way of executing his strokes perfectly. Tendulkar was born to bat," he once wrote.

Tendulkar is India's biggest icon and proudest possession - I remember the rising crescendo of noise when he walked up to receive an award in a stadium filled to the brim in Mumbai two years ago. There were other cricket and Bollywood stars being feted that evening. Nobody could match the reception that Tendulkar got.

If you want to know how difficult it has been for Tendulkar to become the greatest cricketer India has ever had, listen to Roebuck again:

"The runs, the majesty, the thrills, do not capture his achievement. Reflect upon his circumstances and then marvel at his feat. Here is a man obliged to put on disguises so that he can move around the streets, a fellow able to drive his cars only in the dead of night for fear of creating a commotion, a father forced to take his family to Iceland on holiday, a person whose entire adult life has been lived in the eye of a storm."

It has been an incredible journey for this magician of cricket. And he is still pulling off new tricks and hitting fresh milestones. How does he do it?

Soon, you'll be able to surf the web at the speed of light!!

Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a new infrared laser made from germanium that operates at room temperature, which has made light-speed computing come one step closer to reality.

The research removes the cryogenic cooling systems previously needed for infrared lasers and could lead to powerful computer chips that operate at the speed of light.

"Using a germanium laser as a light source, you could communicate at very high data rates at very low power".

Jurgen Michel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the developer of the new germanium laser.

"Eventually, you could have the computing power of today's supercomputers inside a laptop".

The creation of a new laser, even one based on germanium, is not newsworthy; more than 15,000 different lasers, some of which use germanium, have been created since the 1950s.

What makes this particular germanium laser unique is that it creates an infrared beam at room temperature.

Until now infrared germanium lasers required expensive cryogenic cooling systems to operate. The new germanium laser operates at room temperature.

To create the germanium laser, the scientists take a six-inch, silvery-gray disk of silicon and spray it with a thin film of germanium.

These same disks are actually used to produce chips in today's computers.

An electrically powered, room-temperature, infrared laser for laptop computers is still years away.

If and when those laptops do arrive, they will be powerful - more powerful in fact than even today's supercomputers.

The battery that powers the laptop won't necessarily last any longer, but the power it does hold will make calculations orders of magnitude faster than today.

"We need high-density, low-power solutions".

Computer chips are constantly getting smaller and smaller, but they are approaching the fundamental limits of electron-based computing.

Light-based computing is one option to improve the speed and power of computers.

"Germanium-based optical computing is an especially attractive material for optical computing because it wouldn't require any change to the existing computer chip industry".

The same machines that use silicon could also use germanium to make future chips.

India beat Pakistan 4-1 in Hockey World Cup

Reports from New Delhi:

Ace drag-flicker Sandeep Singh rose to the occasion and converted two penalty corners as hosts India outplayed Pakistan 4-1 in a thrilling Pool B match of the Hero Honda FIH World Cup at Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium on Sunday.

With this victory India had avenged their 3-6 Champions Challenge defeat at the hands of the sub-continental rivals in Salta, Argentina last December.

The victory not only gave India a 3-2 head-to-head record against Pakistan in the quadrennial event but also one lakh purse each to the players and support staff of the team.

Sandeep (35th minute, 57th), Shivendra Singh (27th) and Prabhjot Singh (37th) were the scorers for India, while Sohail Abbas (59th) scored Pakistan's lone goal.

Both India and Pakistan earned five penalty corners each, out of which the home team converted two while their opponent found the net once.

The match was also of huge significance for India and Pakistan on diplomatic front as both the countries are meeting in the sporting arena in India for the first time after 26/11 Mumbai carnage.

Sensing the pressure and stake associated with the high-profile encounter, India applied pressure on their next door neighbours from the onset and used both the flanks effectively.

If not for Salman Akbar, Pakistan would have been down by a bigger margin in the half time. The Pakistani goalkeeper came to his side's rescue on more than one occasion.

First Akbar denied Tushar Khandekar a chance to register his name in the scoreboard by stopping the Indian forwards' powerful strike as early as in the seventh minute of the match and then gloved away Diwakar Ram's flick from the hosts' first penalty corner in the 16th minute.

India's domination can be gauged from the fact that they thoroughly outrolled the mid-field with Pakistan hardly making inroads into their rival's goal in the first half.

India's constant pressure eventually resulted in the first goal of the match through hardworking Shivendra, who scored from a rebound after Sandeep's grounded flick was saved by Akbar off the hosts' second penalty corner in the 25th minute.

If that was not enough for Pakistan, India doubled their lead just five second from the interval from a set-piece.

India earned their third penalty corner after the home team appealed for a foot foul and the video umpire upheld their appeal. Sandeep made no mistake this time and sounded the board to the much delight of the capacity crowd to go into the breather with a 2-0 lead.

Playing before their home crowd, the motivated Indians started from where they left in the first half and made it 3-0 two minutes into the second half when veteran forward Prabhjot Singh scored from a goal-mouth melee.