News and Your Views

There are so many bugs in Chess Titan Game included in windows 7 OS, This Game was developed by Oberon Games.
I found not only same bug once but many times;
Here is one.
You can see Computer move BLACK QUEEN on Top left

Then I moved Pawn (White Soldier), bottom left 2 Steps Ahead

Now you see the Computer Move

It’s not only Kill the Pawn but Move one step ahead too.

I am sure Microsoft added it without checking.
here is more such Bugs http://s798.photobucket.com/albums/yy269/mynation/chess/

No matter what you do in this world, how much wealth, name and fame you have, someday you have to leave as you came Empty handed.

Only Great King and Warrior Alexander the Great realized it, when he was on his Death Bed. 
There is very instructive incident involving the life of Alexander, the great Greek king. Alexander, after conquering many kingdoms, was returning home. On the way, he fell ill and it took him to his death bed. With death staring him in his face, Alexander realized how his conquests, his great army, his sharp sword and all his wealth were of no consequence.

He now longed to reach home to see his mother’s face and bid her his last adieu. But, he had to accept the fact that his sinking health would not permit him to reach his distant homeland. So, the mighty conqueror lay prostrate and pale, helplessly waiting to breathe his last. He called his generals and said, “I will depart from this world soon, I have three wishes, please carry them out without fail.” With tears flowing down their cheeks, the generals agreed to abide by their king’s last wishes.
 “My first desire is that,” said Alexander, “My physicians alone must carry my coffin.” After a pause, he continued, “Secondly, I desire that when my coffin is being carried to the grave, the path leading to the graveyard be strewn with gold, silver and precious stones which I have collected in my treasury.

“The king felt exhausted after saying this. He took a minute’s rest and continued. “My third and last wish is that both my hands be kept dangling out of my coffin.” The people who had gathered there wondered at the king’s strange wishes. But no one dare bring the question to their lips.

Alexander’s favorite general kissed his hand and pressed them to his heart. “O king, we assure you that your wishes will all be fulfilled. But tell us why do you make such strange wishes?”
 

At this Alexander took a deep breath and said: “I would like the world to know of the three lessons I have just learnt. I want my physicians to carry my coffin because people should realize that no doctor can really cure any body. They are powerless and cannot save a person from the clutches of death. So let not people take life for granted.

The second wish of strewing gold, silver and other riches on the way to the graveyard is to tell People that not even a fraction of gold will come with me. I spent all my life earning riches but cannot take anything with me. Let people realize that it is a sheer waste of time to chase wealth.
 And about my third wish of having my hands dangling out of the coffin, I wish people to know that I came empty handed into this world and empty handed I go out of this world.”

Alexander’s last words:  “Bury my body, do not build any monument, keep my hands outside so that the world knows the person who won the world had nothing in his hands when dying“.
 
With these words, the king closed his eyes. Soon he let death conquer him and breathed his last.

What is the use winning whole world and lose his own soul – Guess who said it..?

Usually coin collecting begins with ordinary pennies or quarters. Most collectors started their huge collections as children and now most of them have an impressive range of various extremely rare specimens. Today rare coins are very valuable, but what is the biggest value or price paid for a rare coin? The most expensive coins in the world are presented below.

A rare 1913-dated U.S. Liberty Head nickel that was featured in a 1973 episode of the TV series, “Hawaii Five-O,” was purchased for $3,737,500 in a public auction conducted in Orlando, Florida by Dallas’ Heritage Auctions last night (Jan. 7, 2010).

If you remember the television series Hawaii Five-O, there was a rare 1913 U.S. Liberty Head nickel featured in a 1973 episode that is now worth a lot more than five cents. It was just sold for $3.7 million dollars at public auction. The Liberty Head nickel is quite rare — it is one of only five 1913 Liberty Head nickels known to exist.

The 1913 U.S. Liberty Head nickel, known the Olsen-Hawn piece has been owned by a few famous owners prior to the auction. The coin’s owners have included Egypt’s King Farouk and Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss.

The coin is so valuable that it was only seen in close-ups in the 1973 episode of Hawaii Five-O. Producers of the show used a stunt double nickel for most of the scenes.

Jerry Buss paid $200,000 for the coin in 1978, and it has been sold several times since then. Records on the Antique sellet sites show that started to sell for millions of dollars in 2003.

The Liberty Head nickel is often referred to as the V nickel due to its reverse design. It was minted from 1883 to 1912. Five pieces were minted in 1913 and these are the five rare coins that exist today.

“The U.S. Mint struck tens of millions of Liberty Head nickels from 1883 through 1912, but switched designs in 1913 to depict a Native American on the “head’s” side and a bison on the “tail’s” side. However, five nickels with the new date, 1913, but the old design of the symbolic Miss Liberty secretly were made at the Philadelphia Mint and eventually sold to collectors,” Rohan said in a release.

One of the five fabled 1913 Liberty nickels is in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; another belongs to the American Numismatic Association (ANA) Money Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado; and the three others, including the coin in the January auction, are privately owned by collections.

Three of the nickels are owned privately and two are in museums. One of the five rare nickels, The Norweb 1913 Liberty Head Nickel, is now a showpiece in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution.

The sale of the 1913 U.S. Liberty Head nickel on January 7, 2010 was made at an auction in Orlando, Florida. The name of the seller and buyer has not been released.

A rare Canadian penny billed as “the king of Canadian coins” was purchased for $402,500 US at a New York auction Sunday.

A 1936 Canadian “dot cent” had garnered considerable online traffic after bidding began earlier this week on the Dallas-based Heritage Auctions website.

Only three of such pennies are known to exist; the makeshift coin was struck — but never circulated — after the death of King George V.

Canadian authorities had prepared to produce coins with the effigy of King Edward VIII, who succeeded George V, but Edward VIII then stepped down from the throne to marry an American divorcee and the dies for the coins carrying Edward’s image could not be used.

In response, the 1936 coin was put back into production with only a tiny dot below the date to differentiate it.

“This is the rarest, the most valuable, the most charismatic and legendary Canadian coin that exists,” said Cristiano Bierrenbach, director of international sales with Heritage Auction, last week. “In Canada, there is nothing that is worth more individually than the 1936 Dot Cent.”

The famed 1936 Canadian “Dot Cent” was the highlight of a group of coins billed as the single most substantial collection of Canadian coins ever offered at public auction.

Heritage Auction, which ran the sale, had predicted the penny would fetch at least $300,000.

A blogger at antiques.com predicted the sale would “change the face of the Canadian numismatic market as a host of coins that have not seen the open market in years make their way back into the general coin collecting populace.”

The penny is rare because it’s one of only three known 1936-dated Canadian cents struck by the Royal Canadian Mint with a small but distinctive dot below the date to indicate it actually was made in 1937.

The penny bears the image of King George V, who died in January 1936 but coins with his image continued to be made that year.

When George’s successor, Edward VIII, abdicated the throne in December of the same year, the coin-making dies prepared for 1937 with Edward’s image were no longer valid.

The mint experimented with 1936-dated coins struck in 1937 with a dot added to the design to distinguish them from coins struck earlier.

Dot Cents were long considered unavailable as all three were held by noted American numismatist John Jay Pittman, who paid $250 for them in 1954.

They were auctioned off after his death in 1996.

I will describe step by step the architecture Oracle 10g CRS (Cluster Ready Service) on raw disks and database on ASM(Automatic Storage Management) on AIX 6.1 with VIO.

I will not go into details to explain but i try to explain what we have done from AIX administrator point of view.

SETUP DETAILS:

ORACLE 10g Release 2 (10.2)
AIX 6.1 (VIO server 2.1.2.10) LPAR on 2 different servers
OS / DataBase disk from SAN (DS8000)

2 Nodes (LPAR) with 2 network card and one Alias IP (eg: for en0
one Node IP 
AIX 6.1 Certification
Starting with Oracle Database 10g release 2 (10.2.0.3), AIX 6.1 (64 bit) operating system is supported. Refer to “Preinstallation Requirements” for more information

The latest information on patches and support for this release is available in
OracleMetaLink document 282036.1.

ODBC Certification

Starting with Oracle Database 10g release 2 (10.2.0.4), ODBC driver is supported on AIX operating systems.

3 Software Contents on Installation Media

The following products and documentation are located on the first DVD:

 Oracle Database 10g release 2 (10.2) software and documentation

 Oracle Database Companion Products 10g release 2 (10.2) software and documentation

 Oracle Database 10g release 2 (10.2) Documentation Library The following
products and documentation are located on the second DVD:

 Oracle Clusterware 10g release 2 (10.2) software and documentation

 Oracle Database Client 10g release 2 (10.2) software and documentation

 Oracle Gateway 10g release 2 (10.2) software and documentation

 Oracle Database 10g release 2 (10.2) Documentation Library

4 Preinstallation Requirements

In addition to the information in the installation guides, the following section contains the system requirements for AIX 6.1.

You must review the following sections before installing Oracle Database on AIX 6L:
Operating System Requirement
Operating System Filesets for AIX 6L Oracle Installations
32-Bit Kernel Support
Configuring Shell Limits for Oracle RAC Installations

 

4.1 Operating System Requirement

In addition to the supported operating systems listing in the installation guide, AIX 6L, version 6.1,
64-bit kernel is supported with service pack 01 (6100-00-01) or later.

Refer to Oracle Database Installation Guide for AIX 5L Based Systems (64-Bit) for additional information on operating system listings.

4.2 Operating System Filesets for AIX 6L

The following filesets are supported on Oracle Database 10g release 2:

bos.adt.base
bos.adt.lib
bos.adt.libm
bos.perf.libperfstat
bos.perf.perfstat
bos.perf.proctools
xlC.aix61.rte:9.0.0.1
xlC.rte:9.0.0.1

4.3 Oracle Installations

Installing on AIX 6L requires the following installations:

 Oracle patch 6613550
 Oracle Database 10g release 2 (10.2.0.1)
Oracle Database patch set 10g release 2 (10.2.0.3)

4.4 32-Bit Kernel Support

Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) supports 32-bit kernel for single-instance databases but does not support 32-bit kernel for Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC).

4.5 Configuring Shell Limits for Oracle RAC Installations

Unlimited shell values must be set for both the Oracle installation owner (oracle) and the root user.
The root user requirement for unlimited is needed because the Oracle Clusterware daemon (crsd) runs as root.

Configure the shell
limits setting to unlimited either by using the smit utility or by editing the
/etc/security/limits file. Add the following lines to the limits
file:

time(seconds) unlimited
file(blocks) unlimited
data(kbytes) unlimited
stack(kbytes) 4194304
memory(kbytes) unlimited
coredump(blocks) 2097151
nofiles(descriptors) 2000

threads(per process) unlimited
processes(per user) unlimited
( -1 will set to unlimited )
 

This requirement supplements the description of shell limits in “Section 2.4.1,Configure Shell Limits” in Oracle Database Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters Installation Guide for AIX Based Systems 10g Release 2 (10.2).
With Oracle RAC, each instance must have access to the datafiles and recovery files for the Oracle 10g RAC database. Using Automatic Storage Management (ASM) is an easy way to satisfy this requirement.
ASM is an integrated, high-performance database file system and disk manager. ASM is based on the principle that the database should manage storage instead of requiring an administrator to do it.
ASM eliminates the need for you to directly manage potentially thousands of Oracle database files. ASM groups the disks in your storage system into one or more disk groups. You manage a small set of disk groups and ASM automates the placement of the database files within those disk groups.

change new values to network // to add in next boot
/etc/tunables/nextboot  run all command with no -r

no -r -o tcp_sendspace= 262144
no -r -o tcp_recvspace= 262144
no -r -o udp_sendspace= 65536
no -r -o udp_recvspace= 262144
no -r -o sb_max= 1310720
no -r -o rfc1323= 1

DO NOT ADD ALIAS IP TO network card ORACLE will assign automatically.

You must install SDDPCM filesets and enable SDDPCM.. SDDPCM cannot co-exist with SDD.

Disks assigned as follows

The following are mandatory for oracle cluster ware installation and database home installation for RAC setup: OCR disk : Normal Redundancy (OCR mirroring by Oracle Clusterware) If “NORMAL Redundancy” selected,

• /dev/ocr_disk1 ( each 1Gb from DS8000)

• /dev/ocr_disk2 ( from 1GB DS8000x)

Specify the OCR location : this must be a shared location on the shared storage reachable from all nodes. And you must have the read/wright permissions on this shared location from all nodes.

Voting disks : Normal Redundancy (Voting copies managed by Oracle Clusterware)
If “NORMAL Redundancy” selected, specify raw disk location as follow:

• /dev/voting_disk1 ( each 1Gb from DS8000)

• /dev/voting_disk2 ( each 1Gb from DS8000x)

• /dev/voting_disk3 (each 1 Gb from DS8000)

For dbf files

From DS8000

/dev/hddisk6( each 10GB)
/dev/hddisk11( each 10GB)
/dev/hddisk7( each 10GB)
/dev/hddisk12( each 10GB)
/dev/hddisk8( each 10GB)
/dev/hddisk13( each 10GB)

From DS8000x

/dev/hddisk9( each 10GB)
/dev/hddisk14( each 10GB)
/dev/hddisk10( each 10GB)
/dev/hddisk15( each 10GB)

DS8000 and DS8000X are different SAN storages; All disks to be shared among both Nodes.

# ls -al hdisk*

brw——-1 root system 13, 0 Dec 23 22:18 hdisk1

brw——-1 root system 13, 2 Dec 23 22:18 hdisk2

brw——-1 root system 13, 3 Dec 23 22:18hdisk3

brw——-1 root system 13, 4 Dec 23 22:18 hdisk4

brw——-1 root system 13, 5 Dec 23 22:18 hdisk5

if your ocr disk is hdisk3 then major and minor number will be 13,3

mknod /dev/ocr_disk1 c 13 3 (do the same for all OCR and Voting disks)

chdev -l hdisk#no -a pv= clear

chdev -l hdisk#no -a reserve_policy= no_reserve

chdev -l hdisk#no -a reserve_lock= no

set ownerchip to oracle:dba to the /dev/hdisk#no

set read/write permissions to 660 to the /dev/hdisk#no

enable RSH

cd /oracle

vi .rhosts //add other hostname username

chmod 600 .rhosts

cd /etc vi hosts.equiv //add other hostname username

add in /etc/hosts

## public

10.1.115.158 node1
10.1.115.159 node2

## VIP

10.1.115.160 node1-vip
10.1.115.161 node2-vip

## Private

10.2.115.158 node1-priv
10.2.115.159 node2-priv

To establish a default gateway, type:

{node1:root}/ -> route add 0 10.2.115.254

{node2:root}/ -> route add 0 10.2.115.254

The value 0 or the default keyword for the Destination parameter means that
any packets sent to destinations not previously defined and not on a directly
connected network go through the default gateway. The 10.2.115.254 address
is that of the gateway chosen to be the default.

change paging space according to RAM X 2

To create the following groups :

smit group

dba .. Primary group for the oracle user.

oinstall .. The ora inventory group. This group is not mandatory. If it
exists, it will be the group owner of the oracle code files. This group is a
secondary group for oracle user.

To create the users :

smit user

oracle .. Owner of the database.

STEPS done from ORACLE TEAM

Download oracle patchset 10.2.0.4 patch # 6810189

Configured rsh between Node1 & Node2 successfully for clusterware installation.

Uploaded 2DVDS and Oracle patch set to two oracle nodes ( i.e. Node1 & Node2 ) successfully

Installed oracle clusterware ( CRS_HOME i.e. /oracle/products/crs) on Node1 as primary node successfully

Installed oracle ASM ( ASM_HOME i.e /oracle/products/asm) on Node1 as primary node successfully

Executed VIPCA on Node2 for fully configuring RAC nodes.

Installed Oracle HOME ( ORACLE_HOME i.e /oracle/products/10.2.0 on Node1 as primary node successfully .

Created ASM instance between Node1 & Node2 successfully.

Configured ASM disks for ASM , Oracle DB and flash back recovery.

Upgraded CRS_HOME to 10.2.0..4 by applying patch set 6810189 successfully

Upgraded ORACLE_HOME to 10.2.0..4 by applying patch set 6810189 successfully.

Upgraded ASM_HOME to 10.2.0.4 by applying patch set 6810189 successfully

Created “test” RAC database on Node1 node as primary node successfully.

Created ASD disk group for flash back recovery.

Changed newly created RAC database to archive log mode and assigned new ASM disk groups for archive log destination with normal redundancy.

Configured a sample service to test connectivity between nodes.

We performed all sanity checks relating to CRS/ASM/Oracle Home successfully. As of now RAC database is up and running between nodes successfully.

SQL> startup

ORA-27504: IPC error creating OSD context

ORA-27300: OS system dependent operation:sendmsg failed with status: 59

ORA-27301: OS failure message: Message too long

ORA-27302: failure occurred at: sskgxpsnd1

ORA-27303: additional information: MTU verification failed to send msg.

Fix for above issue :

Ora-27302:sskgxpsnd1 – Starting Instance [ID 300956.1]

Applies To

Oracle Server – Enterprise Edition – Version: 9.2.0.1 to 10.1.0.3
AIX5L Based Systems (64-bit)
HP Tru64

Symptoms

When starting an instance on AIX platform we may recieve the following errors in the alert log file:

ORA-00603: ORACLE server session terminated by fatal error

ORA-27504: IPC error creating OSD context

ORA-27300: OS system dependent operation:sendmsg failed with status:59

ORA-27301: OS failure message: Message too long

ORA-27302: failure occurred at: sskgxpsnd1

NEW YORK – Peter Criss, founding member of rock band KISS, knows that many of his male fans are macho, so he is making the rounds to tell them even tough rocker guys like him can suffer from a disease usually associated with women — breast cancer.

Criss, who was the New York rock band’s drummer on and off from its founding in 1972 until 2004 and the voice on some of their most beloved classics, including the 1976 Top Ten hit “Beth” and “Hard Luck Woman”, said too many men don’t seek treatment and think breast discomfort will go away on its own.

But Criss, who discovered a lump in his left nipple in December 2007, said men need to get over their perception that breast cancer is a woman’s disease.

“It can happen to you, and when it does, if you don’t deal with it right away, with your ‘dude’ and your metal and your tattoos, you’ll go in the box and we’ll see you,” Criss told media during National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Criss, 63, underwent a lumpectomy in February 2008 and a mastectomy the following month under the care of Dr. Alex Swistel, director of the Weill Cornell Breast Center in New York, and he often felt odd as the only man in the waiting room.

While breast cancer among men is one hundred times less common than among women, it can be deadly. The American Cancer Society estimated there will be 1,910 new cases of male breast cancer in 2009, and about 440 U.S. men will die this year from the disease.

Criss, who is now cancer free, acknowledged that the treatment was unpleasant.

“Whoever invented (mammogram machines) had to do it in the medieval days,” he said, adding that it was nearly impossible to fit a small male breast into the machine. He called the pain “excruciating” but a worthwhile price to pay to be healthy.

Criss, who is currently working on an autobiography as well as a new rock album, said his bout with cancer had affected his songwriting.

“My lyrics are not so deep and dismal,” he said. One of the tracks on the album, expected next spring, is called “Hard Rock Knockers.”

Criss said he is sanguine about the fact that his old KISS bandmates, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, are currently on a North American tour of arenas with two new band members, one in the make-up of Criss’ “Catman” character and the other as ex-guitarist Ace Frehley’s “Spaceman.”

In its 1970s heyday with Criss and Frehley, KISS cranked out hit albums such as “Alive!,” and its live performances that were filled with pyrotechnics rocked audiences.

“You want to put two clones up there in our makeup, that’s great,” he said. “Must I keep putting spandex and makeup on at 70 — I don’t think I really want to do that.”

Still, Criss said he hopes his heavy metal credentials will help mitigate the stigma around breast cancer for men.

Ladies, here’s a good excuse to guzzle the next glass of beer — drinking it daily could stop your bones from going brittle, say researchers.

A new study by a team in Spain has revealed that the bones of women who drink beer regularly are stronger, making them less likely to suffer from osteoporosis which is common in females after menopause.

And, according to the researchers, the high level of silicon in beer actually slows down the thinning that leads to fractures and boosts the formation of new bone, the latest issue of the Nature journal reported.

“Silicon plays a major role in bone formation. Beer has been claimed to be one of the most important sources of silicon in the Western diet,” the researchers were quoted by the British media as saying.

Beer is also rich in phytoestrogens, plant versions of oestrogen, which keep bones healthy. Bones are made up of a mesh of fibres, minerals, blood vessels and marrow and healthy ones are denser with smaller spaces between different parts.

For the study, the researchers asked 1,700 healthy women with an average age of 48 about their drinking habits. They then underwent ultrasound scans of their hands, which showed the bones belonging to beer drinkers to be denser.

The women’s hands were chosen because the bones in the fingers are among the first to show signs of osteoporosis, a disease of bone that leads to an increased risk of fracture.

Those who had less than a pint a day, whom the researchers classed as light beer drinkers, fared just as well as those in the moderate bracket, suggesting that even small amounts can boost bone health.

SUN VALLEY, Idaho – Google Inc. is working on a new operating system for inexpensive computers in a daring attempt to wrest away Microsoft Corp.’s long-running control over people’s computing experience.

The new operating system, announced late Tuesday night on Google’s Web site, will be based on the company’s nine-month-old Web browser, Chrome. Google intends to rely on help from the community of open-source programmers to develop the Chrome operating system, which is expected to begin running computers in the second half of 2010.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company disclosed its plans for the operating system shortly after an online technology news service, Ars Technica, and The New York Times telegraphed the news on their Web sites.

Google is designing the operating system primarily for “netbooks,” a lower-cost, less powerful breed of laptop computers that is becoming increasingly popular among budget-conscious consumers primarily interested in surfing the Web.

The operating system represents Google’s boldest challenge yet to its biggest nemesis — Microsoft.

A high-stakes duel between the two technology powerhouses has been steadily escalating in recent years as Google’s dominance of the Internet’s lucrative search market has given it the means to threaten Microsoft in ways that few other companies can.

Google already has rankled Microsoft by luring away some of its top employees and developing an online suite of computer programs that provide an alternative to Microsoft’s top-selling word processing, spreadsheet and calendar applications.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has been trying to thwart Google by investing billions of dollars to improve its own Internet search and advertising systems — to little avail so far. In the past month or so, though, Microsoft has been winning positive reviews and picking up more users with the latest upgrade to its search engine, now called “Bing.” Microsoft is hailing the makeover with a $100 million marketing campaign.

Now Google is aiming for Microsoft’s financial jugular with Chrome its operating system.

Microsoft has drawn much of its power — and profits — from the Windows operating system that has steered most personal computers for the past two decades.

Google’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt, and its co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have made little attempt to conceal their disdain for Windows in recent years.

Schmidt maintains Microsoft sometimes unfairly rigs its operating system to limit consumer choices — something that Microsoft has consistently denied doing. Google fears Microsoft could limit access to its search engine and other products if Windows is set up to favor Microsoft products in the default settings.

Page and Brin have frequently derided Windows as a clunky operating system susceptible to computer viruses and other security problems.

Google made a veiled reference to Windows’ perceived shortcomings in its blog posting.

“We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better,” wrote Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management and Linus Upson, Google’s engineering director.

A Microsoft spokesman didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment sent early Wednesday morning.

Schmidt and Brin are expected to discuss Google’s new operating system later this week when they appear at a media conference hosted by Allen & Co. at the Sun Valley resort in Idaho.

Despite its own power and prominence, Google won’t have an easy time changing the status quo that has governed the personal computing industry for so long.

As an example of how difficult it is to topple a long-established market leader, Google estimates about 30 million people are now using its Chrome browser — a fraction of those that rely on Microsoft’s market-leading Internet Explorer. And there have been various attempts to develop open-source software to undermine Microsoft with relatively little effect.

The Chrome operating system will run in a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel — computer coding that has been the foundation for the open-source software movement for nearly two decades.

Google has already introduced an operating system for mobile devices, called Android, that vies against various other systems, including ones made by Microsoft and Apple Inc.

The Android system worked well enough to entice some computer makers to begin developing netbooks that will eventually run on it.

Google, though, apparently believes a Chrome-based system will be better suited for running applications in netbooks.

“We believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google,” wrote Pichai and Upson.

Some food groups in the Mediterranean diet are more important than others in promoting health and longer life, Eating more vegetables, fruits, nuts, pulses and olive oil, and drinking moderate amounts of alcohol, while not consuming a lot of meat or excessive amounts of alcohol is linked to people living longer.

However, the study also claims, that following a Mediterranean diet high in fish, seafood and cereals and low in dairy products were not indicators of longevity.

While several studies have concluded that the Mediterranean diet improves chances of living longer, this is the first to investigate the importance of individual components of the diet.

Professor Dimitrios Trichopoulos at the Harvard School of Public Health explains that they have surveyed over 23,000 men and women who were participants in the Greek segment of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC).

Participants were given dietary and lifestyle questionnaires when they enrolled onto the study and they were subsequently followed up for around 8.5 years with interviews. Their diets were rated from 0 to 10 based on the level of conformity to a traditional Mediterranean diet.

As part of the interview process, participants were also asked about their smoking status, levels of physical activity and whether they had ever been diagnosed with cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

The authors maintain that when high intake of vegetables, low intake of meat or moderate alcohol intake were excluded from the rating system, the benefits of following a Mediterranean diet were substantially reduced. They also note that there are clear benefits in combining several of the key components, for example high consumption of vegetables and olive oil.

Professor Trichopoulou, lead author of the study, concludes that the main reasons why the Mediterranean diet can lead to living longer are moderate consumption of ethanol (mostly in the form of wine during meals, as traditionally done in the Mediterranean countries), low consumption of meat and meat products, and high consumption of vegetables, fruits and nuts, olive oil and legumes.