DNA

The existence of DNA was discovered in the mid 19th century. But the fact that it stored genetic information was only accepted after the double helix structure of DNA was described by James D Watson and Francis Crick in their 1953 paper. In 1962, Watson, Crick and Maurice Wilkins-another scientist who researched DNA- jointly received the Nobel Prize for their work in the field.

Piezoelectricity

Piezoelectricity is the ability of some crystals to generate a voltage in response to applied mechanical stress. The word is derived from the Greek piezein, which means 'to sqeeze'. Red Indian tribes were the first to use Piezoelectricity. They filled a rattle made from buffalo hide with quartz crystals. When the rattle was shaken, the stress produced flashes of electric light.

Music in games

Music in games mostly consisted of a series of beeps, but with the advancement in technology, companies started opting for well known artists. In 1994, Way of the Warrior, with music by 'White Zombie' was one of the first games to have a well known artist doing the score. Quake had Trent Reznor from 'Nine Inch Nails' while Duke Nukem 3D boasted of 'Megadeth'.

Compressed Natural Gas

Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), a substitute for petrol or diesel, is considered to be an environmentally clean alternative to those fuels. It is made by compressing purified natural gas, a gaseous fossil-fuel consisting primarily of methane. Natural gas is found in oil fields and natural gas fields, and also in coal bed, but in smaller quantities.

Casio

Casio was established in April 1946 by Tadao Kashio. His first major product was the yubiwa pipe, a finger ring that could hold a cigarette, allowing the wearer to smoke, while leaving their hands free. The invention was a success and in 1949, Kashio used the profits from the yubiwa pipe to develop electronic calculators. In 1957, Casio released the world's first all-electric compact calculator.

Sonar

SONAR (Sound Navigation And Ranging) is a technique that uses sound propogation underwater to detect obstacles. In 1960, Lewis Nixon invented the very first sonar listening device to detect icebergs. Then, during World War 1, physicist Paul Langevin, worked with electrical engineer, Constantin Chilowski to invent the first sonar device for detecting submarines in 1915.

Linux

The Linux operating system is one of the most prominent examples of open source development. This means that all of its underlying source code is available for anyone to freely use, modify, improve and redistribute. The OS, which was developed by a Finnish university student Linus Torvalds in 1991, uses a chubby penguin called Tux- that looks content and satisfied- as its official mascot.

HMV and JVC

HMV music and JVC Japan share a common logo of a dog listening to a gramaphone. JVC is not allowed to use the logo out of Japan, whereas HMV is not allowed to use it in that country. The logo was created by a certain Francis Barraud who modelled it on his pet dog called Nipper. The logo is known universally as "His master's voice".

Bionic

The word 'bionic' is got by combining 'bio' meaning life and the 'nic' of electronic. A lot of devices are currently being researched to make bionic implants possible while a few of them already exist. The best known of these is the cochlear implant: a device that is surgically placed under the skin behind the ear allowing deaf people to hear.

Tamagotchi

Tamagotchi, the virtual pet, has three buttons: A, B and C that allow the user to select the options to feed or play with it. A tamagotchi can evolve into a wide range of "characters" depending on how well the user takes care of it. The name combines the Japanese word for egg "tamago" and the syllable "chi" which denotes affection, so it could be taken to mean "loveable egg".

Gadgets

The etymology of the word gadget is disputed. Some sources say it was "invented" when gadget, Gauthier & Cie, the company that created the Statue of Liberty, made a small-scale version of the monument and named it after their firm. Other sources cite the French gagee, a small tool or accessory; or the Scottish engineering jargon 'gadge', a measuring device.

Dinosaurs

The tallest and heaviest dinosaur known from a complete skeleton-at 38 feet and weighing between 30-60 tonnes- is the Brachiosaurus. The longest complete dinosaur, however, is the 89 feet long Diplodocus. There were larger dinosaurs, but knowledge of them is based on incomplete fossil samples. For example, the estimated 60 feet Sauroposeidon, could easily have reached a sixth-floor window.

Davy lamp

The first bulb was created in 1801 by Sir Humphry Davy. His bulb used strips of platinum that glowed when electric current passed through them. But since these strips evaporated quickly, the invention wasn't a very useful light source. Then, in 1809, he invented charcoal rods connected to a battery. This came to be known as the Davy lamp.

Hotwired.com

Hotwired.com, the Website for technology magazine. Wired was the first site on the Internet to have a static advertisement banner, this was back in 1994. Since then online advertising has grown and it is estimated that this year revenues will cross the sum of $12.5 billion.

Konami

Konami was founded in Japan in 1969 as a jukebox rental and repair business by Kagemasa Kozuki. The name Konami means 'small waves', The company produced its first game in 1978, a ball and paddle (like Pong) coin-operated arcade game called the Block Game.

Codex Leicester

The Codex Leicester, a collection of scientific writings on astronomy, the properties of water, rocks and fossils, air and celestial light by da Vinci is currently the only document by the scientist/artist to be held in private hands. In 1994, Bill Gates bought the 72-page manuscript at an auction for $30.8 million. The Codex is put on public display once a year in different cities around the world.

Hominidae

Humans belong to the biological family Hominidae (the great apes), which also includes chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. The hominidae comprises of those species who share more than 97 percent of their DNA with the modern human. The first instance of a hominidae dates back to a 6-7 million-year-old fossil called "Toumai" by its discoverers, and formally classified as 'Sahelanthropus tchadensis'.

Planets

All the planets in our solar system are named after Roman gods, except for Uranus (named after a Greek god) and the Earth, which was not seen as a planet in old days but rather the centre of the universe. The name planet comes from the Greek term 'palnetes', meaning 'wanderer', as ancient astronomers noted how certain lights moved across the sky in relation to the other stars.

Japan's Olympus Corp

Japan's Olympus Corp, specialising in optics and imaging, was founded in 1919 and takes its name from Mount Olympus, the home of the gods in Greek mythology. One of its first innovations was the half-frame PEN camera, launched in 1959. Half-frame format means it takes 72 pictures on a standard 36 exposure roll of film.

Webby Awards

The Webby Awards was founded in 1996 by Tiffany Shlain who is also co-founder of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS). IADAS is a 550 member institute that now serves as a judging body of the "Webbies".

Elder Scrolls

The Elder scrolls is a role playing game developed by Bethesda Softworks. There are a total of eleven games in the Elder Scrolls series, the first of which is The Elder Scrolls: Arena, released in 1994 for MS-DOS. The game, in 2004, was made a free Internet download as part of the 10th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls series.

Watt

Watt, a unit of power, is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889. The productive capacity of electrical generators operated by electric companies is often measured in megawatts. The megawatt (symbol: MW) is a unit for measuring power equal to one million watts.

Adult Video Games

One of the first adult video games was called Custer's Revenge and was created for the Atari 2600 console in 1983. When it came to PCs, the first games were in the form of adult text adventuures, gradually progressing to graphical adventures such as the famous, Leisure Suit Larry was released in 1987.

Apple

Apple was started after Steve Jobs sold the first computer by approaching a local computer store, The Byte Shop. The store ordered fifty units at a price of $500 each. The fledging Apple started production of the computers with capital obtained by selling off Founder Steve Jobs' Volkswagen bus and Co-founder Steve Wozniak's beloved calculator.

Trillian

Trillian is an instant messaging application for windows that can connect to multiple IM programs such as AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!, IRC, Novell GroupWise, Bonjour, Jabber and Skype (the latter four with Trillian Pro, which allows for additional plug-ins). The software is named after a fictional character in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galazy' by Douglas Adams.

Methanol

Ancient Egyptians used a mixture of substances, including methanol, in their emblaming process. Pure methanol, however, was first isolated in 1661 by Robert Boyle. In 1834, chemists Jean-Baptiste, Dumas and Eugene Peligot called it methylene, forming it from Greek methy = "wine" + "hyle"="wood". The chemical was renamed methanol in 1892 by the International Conference on Chemical Nomenclature.

Tetris

Tetris, a puzzle game, was invented by Alexey Pazhitnov in 1985, while he was working for the Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Rissia. Tetris is derived from the Greek word 'tetra' meaning four, as all the blocks available in the game are made up of four segments. Tetris is the best selling game ever, due to its availability on almost every device: computer and handheld.

Capcom

Capcom is a leading Japanese developer and publisher of video games. It was founded in 1979 as Japan Capsule Computers, devoted to the manufacturing and distribution of electronic game machines. Their current name is a conjunction of Capsule Computers. The company released their first arcade game in 1984 titled Vulgus, a simple vertically scrolling shooter.

Formula 1 cars

Formula 1 cars have over a kilometre of cable, linked to about 1000 sensors which monitor and control its various parts. Speaking of which, an F1 car is made up of more than 80,000 components, and even if it were assembled 99.9 percent correctly, it would still start the race with more than 80 things wrong.

Richard Matthew Stallman

Richard Matthew Stallman aka "RMS" is the founder of the free software movement, the GNU Project, and the Free Software Foundation. Since the nineties, Stallman, an acclaimed hacker, has spent most of his time as a campaigner for free software, against software idea patents and expansions of copyright law. He supports himself by being paid for around half of the speeches he gives.