Vera Farmiga

Vera Farmiga pictures



Biography for
Vera Farmiga
Date of Birth
6 August 1973, Passaic County, New Jersey, USA


Birth Name
Vera Ann Farmiga


Height
5' 7" (1.70 m)


Mini Biography
Vera Farmiga is a Ukrainian-American actress who received an Academy Award nomination for Best Performance in supporting Role as Alex in Up in the Air (2009/I).

She was born Vera Ann Farmiga, second of seven children on August 6, 1973, in Passaic County, New Jersey, USA. She did not speak English until the age of six, and was raised in a strict Ukrainian Catholic home of her father, Michael (Mykola) Farmiga, and her mother, Lyubov (Lyuba) Farmiga. She attended a Ukrainian Catholic school, then went to public School. Young Vera Farmiga was a shy nearsighted girl wearing spectacles while practicing her piano, and was switching to contact lenses for dancing. She was touring with a Ukrainian folk-dancing company in her teens.



In 1991, she graduated from Hunterdon Central regional high school. She initially dreamed of becoming an optometrist, but changed her mind, and studied acting at Syracuse University's School of Performing Arts. In 1996 she began her professional acting career making her Broadway debut as an understudy in the play 'Taking Sides'. Her stage credits included performances in 'The Tempest', 'The Glass Menagerie', 'Hamlet', and in a well-reviewed Off-Broadway production 'Second-Hand Smoke' (1997). At the same time, she made her television debut as a female lead, Catlin, opposite then unknown Heath Ledger in Fox's adventure series "Roar" (1997).

In 1998, Farmiga made her big screen debut in the drama Return to Paradise (1998), then played daughters of Christopher Walken in The Opportunists (2000) and Richard Gere in Autumn in New York (2000). She starred as a working-class mother struggling to keep her life and marriage together while hiding her drug addiction in Down to the Bone (2004), for which she won Best Actress Awards from the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Farmiga's acting talent shone in a range of characters, from her memorable role as the senator's daughter opposite Jon Voight in The Manchurian Candidate (2004), to a mental patient in an insane asylum in Neverwas (2005). She co-stars as the wife of a mobster opposite Paul Walker in Running Scared (2006), as a humorous prostitute in Breaking and Entering (2006), and as a doctor in The Departed (2006).

Vera Farmiga was formerly married to actor Sebastian Roché, whom she met during her work on the series "Roar" (1997), and the two eloped to the Bahamas after the series end in 1997. Their marriage ended in divorce in 2005. In 2008 she married musician Renn Hawkey and the couple has one son, Finn, born in 2009. She shares time between her residencies in New Jersey and in Los Angeles, California. Her other activities outside her acting profession include reading, playing her piano, and spending time with her pet angora goats, an obsession she had since she was a child.

Algae as Fuel

With the navy's move shifting toward newer and greener fuel bases, it's clear that the new fleet's primary concerns list fuel among their top priorities.  And now a ship running off of algae promises to be one of the most effective and interesting looking steps toward a military that not only protects the people of its nation but can utilize resources from almost any source, even growing its own fuel onboard or harvesting it from the sea.  The move is part of a cooperative to make the fleets entirely independent of fuel by the year 2020.

Listed among the possibilities for fuel sources in the year 2020 are nuclear reactors to power ships, solar panels to be used as backup and supplementary generators, and a new development - algae laced fuels.  The fuel currently being used relies on 50% algae and 50% diesel fuel.  The emissions have been hailed as being far less toxic and unlike ethanol, the fuel does not require a massive burning off of food crops in order to sustain it.  The claim that the emissions are less toxic than ethanol may be misleading as the term "toxic" does not necessarily mean lower carbon emissions, but the move is certainly a step toward a more sustainable and economically intelligent military.

The ship was first tested the 22nd of October during a training exercise involving several ships in a wargame-like scenario.  And the exercise has been hailed largely as a huge success.  Is this the military of the future?  Can we expect a green military concerned with its environment as much as it is with victory?

The development is not, however, motivated entirely by ecological interest alone.  In fact, the military in producing this algae driven fuel is in fact making a very intelligent tactical decision as well.  As fuel supplies are a concern in the United States, a lack of fuel or requiring fuel resources to be stockpiled and stored away may grind a military force to a halt.  If the fuel supply were disrupted in any large way, it could rush military forces in a predictable and tactically unsound way toward supply lines in an attempt to retake them.  But if the military were to run exclusively off of power sources that were easily replaced and even grown on the ships themselves this could drop the costs and the supply chain almost entirely from the equation.

But it's not quite the holy grail of military technologies just yet as development still must be made for growing and processing the fuel.  At the moment with the systems in place the algae based fuel systems can cost up to $23,320 per 55-gallon container.  And if this sounds outrageous, keep in mind it is only $24 per gallon over the current cost of diesel.  While the diesel itself is relatively cheap, its transportation requires such a large cost that in just a few years this and other technologies may actually save the military money in the long run in addition to being tactically superior.

Baby Conceived on 1989, Born Now

The latest astounding miracle of medical science has come out thanks to the efforts of a medical team in Eastern Virginia.  A human embryo first conceived in 1989 was frozen for twenty years by two parents, and then transplanted to a surrogate mother who then gave birth to it in May of this year.  To date it is the longest time a human embryo has been conceived and frozen before being born successfully.

The incredible announcement was made in a written analysis in the journal Fertility and Sterility.  As the scientists involved declared that thus far the procedure  had been successful.  And of course this isn't the first time a child has been born that had been conceived years prior, but it is certainly an unusual thing to consider for the future.

Will we eventually live in a world where people who have been frozen for several generations are finally brought into a new world?  According to fertility experts, we could even use current technology to preserve embryos for an indefinite period of time.  Some day a person conceived a century before may be brought out of isolation and born to the descendants of his biological parents.

But while the process is incredibly interesting from a purely scientific perspective, will there be challenges to introducing people from generations prior into a new environment?  While it may not have a direct impact on natural selection (or the model currently in use in our society) immediately, it could hold potential for some exciting and perhaps terrifying future innovations and projects.

Consider the Svalbard Seed Vault first created in 2008.  The project was designed so that in the event of a worldwide catastrophe, a great deal of the world's seeds would be accessible eventually and once again reseed the planet.  But what about the fauna of the planet?  Many plants depend on animals and humans in order for them to reach their potential and thrive.  Could the technology used to preserve embryos be used for access by future generations so the human race could survive as well?  Of course in theory the project would also require humans to bring back this vast underground ark.  At least currently it would.

In February of 2009, Nick Otway from New South Wales Department of Primary Industries proposed that an artificial uterus could be created to save Grey Nurse Sharks from extinction.  And with the attention the procedure received at the time, many asked the obvious question, could it ever work with humans?

So the ultimate futuristic proposal, and this is where it enters the world of mad science, could be made that a seed vault carrying hundreds or possibly thousands of embryos frozen deep within the tundras of Greenland or the Arctic could be preserved with little power and then eventually thawed and introduced into an artificial nursing system that would raise human children with a robotic system using technology not far from our current state in the future.  While the scenario is at the moment nothing more than science fiction fodder, could we one day find ourselves in a world where the human race is saved from extinction by a similar system to the seed vault in Svalbard?  Imagine the last of the human race kept alive in a ship in a bottle to be revived hundreds or possibly thousands of years after it was first conceived.  And while it may sound preposterous to those of us living in the year 2010, will those of 2050 consider it a possibility?

Did God create Man or Man create God?

DOES GOD EXIST?

Here is one of the most controversial and most debated issue that exist from the day man 'created' god. Many would have asked this question at some point at some time in life- 'Does God Exist?' and they would have got an answer be it either positive or negative. Well in today's world religion plays an important role everywhere be it politics, education, various issues and even terrorism.

Why Religion was founded?

There are many religions although Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and Buddhism are the most followed ones. Scientist predict that humans had been living on this planet for about 70,000 to 1,00,000 years. But even the oldest of the religions are not older than 5000 years. What made humans to create religions, create god, rituals, practices, etc. From my understanding and experience HUMANS ALWAYS NEED QUICK SOLUTIONS TO QUESTIONS. The solution need not be perfectly correct but it must be satisfying to all and SIMPLE. There are a lot of unanswered questions about universe, nature, etc. Early humans who were not so intelligent as we are today(This might be true about us too when future generations see us as nomadic) were so much fascinated by all the things around them. To give an explanation they created GOD. Then to add spice to the concept, they brought all the doctrines, practices which we see in today's religions. For every question for which they can't find a solution, they attributed it to majestic effect of GOD, because the solution is SIMPLE and satisfying. However they also made some assumptions. GOD has no beginning, no end, he can simultaneously listen to all of us inside our heads, he answers prayers, he gives us what we ask, he punishes us when we do wrong.. blah blah blah.. By adding more things they gave more and more powers to god. To make things more interesting they created a nemesis for god and its satan or devil or whatever they term it. Every evil or bad thing is associated with him.

Ok now everybody thinks that everything is fine and religions teach morals and are making humans 'good' but now comes the main issue- there is not only one religion alone in this world. There are a lot of them! Religious texts which speak about many things does not convey good about the non followers or followers of other religions. This automatically makes the staunch followers of a religion to develop enmity for other religions. This has even lead to terrorism in today's world! Consider a normal human behaviour- A person forms a group to promote his ideologies. What does he want? More members in his group!! That's what religions wanted to. They wanted to make people follow them. The more the people follow the more stronger they become. Every religion talks about brotherhood among its own religious group members but not on humanity as whole. They consider the non followers as evil, cruel, etc.. This clearly shows the motive. Not to forget about different facts within a religion itself. They have their own fight inside too. Even though there are good things done in the name of religion, i feel that there are more bad things happening and going to happen.

Religion vs Science

Speaking about the relationship between science and religion! One of my favourite topics and every time it makes to laugh at all those folks who say the latest scientific facts had been stated long back in their religious texts. Then why would anyone reinvent and announce them? The time when religions were found, became the dark age of humanity. This was the period in which most scientific practices were abolished, banned since it questioned the religions texts. There were a lot of ancient mathematicians, scientists in ancient Rome, Greece who did a lot of very interesting work and did many inventions but all of a sudden after them there was a long break until Galileo, Copernicus and others showed themselves. Why is this gap? Who created it? The culprit is the religion! Even in the medieval times if someone had to do scientific work they had to go underground to save their heads. This shows the stupidity and arrogance of religious dogma which says it should not be questioned. Simply ridiculous because most of the findings, inventions, discoveries come from questioning which was prohibited by religions. However humans came out of the darkness to find the truth in science. Now when science has taken an upper hand religions claim they are scientific if not superior to science. I don't understand how these people could relate scientific discoveries which required a lot of intelligence to religious dogma which is nothing but stupidity. No wonder some religions today proclaim themselves as scientific religion!

Now coming back to the most important concept in religion- ' GOD CREATED UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING IN IT'. This is what believed by most of people today. I almost laugh at their ignorance and blind belief. Have you people heard of scientific discoveries today? What is universe? Our universe is composed of billions and billions of galaxies with each galaxy consisting of billions and billions of stars. Can you imagine the number? Now consider the distance between stars! Its in 'Light years'. Light has the fastest speed today(may be there might be some particle in future which can travel faster than light) and it takes years for it to travel between stars! Then imagine the colossal size of universe.

Now what is the basic ingredient that makes all these? Its atoms and particles inside them which are very very minute that it takes most powerful microscope to view them. Now there are even theories emerging to show the composition of the particles like protons, electrons themselves. Science is fascinating.

Human intelligence had grown but along with it also their stupidity too! Despite all these proved facts most of the humans still attribute all these to unproven 'God'. Ridiculous isn't it? Even the scientific discoveries are attributed to god. The religious folks not only relate science to them but also the scientists who are behind it. They claim that most scientists are theists. They do not leave even the greatest scientist 'Albert Einstein' himself claiming that he believes in 'God' although he clearly states he does not believe in personal 'God' and used the term in simply metaphorical ways. Recently today's greatest scientist 'Stephen Hawking' stated the same about universe against the existence of GOD. After this i can see a lot of hatred comments against him and ridiculously even about his scientific knowledge! This virtual blindness is the result of the blind faith in religion. The difference between religion and science is wide. Science always accepts mistakes and it continuously changes, improves and relies only verified solutions. Religion on the other hand is clearly dogma, does not change. For instance newtons theories are challenged by Einstein's and are even replaced by Einstein's theories. This is science. But can you ever change a religious text which states god created universe in 7 days into something like it took 8 days? Never! Clearly religion cannot even come near science and there are light years distance between them.

Politics and Religion

Well if the religions do not benefit science they do benefit Politics! Most politicians are concerned about their vote banks and nothing else( remember the group example i said. It applies even here). To attract large vote banks they have a simple way- Religion. Even in America which is a considered as a hot bed for science the motto is 'God bless America'. Can any USA president openly criticize religion nor any scientist would escape criticism if he criticizes religion. Certainly not. Politics is one of the major reasons why religion is still thriving today.

The Blind Superstitions

What about the ridiculous stories told by religions. Worst thing is people even believe in them! The concept of heaven, hell, God flying, recreation, concept of soul, all are noting but ridiculous. The stories in religious texts do not even use slightest of brain! I feel they are even hard to believe than fairy tales. Also we should not question them. Ridiculous isn't it. Most religions say God is responsible for our actions but we will be pushed to hell if we do wrong. Does this makes sense? If god does everything why should we get punishment? Worse thing is about prayers. Whatever we need we can pray to god and he will provide. Its awful that many people believe in prayers more than they believe in themselves.

Cruel things done by religion

Now speaking about cruelties done by religion- It starts from long back when no followers were persecuted, the crusades, conflicts between religions to present day's terrorism. Consider two people, two staunch followers of different religions, both don't have any enmity but they might hate each other just because religion! There had been a lot of bloodsheds in the name of religion if not the most. Certain 'self proclaimed' intelligent speakers claim that atheism had even lead to bloodshed citing to two most dictators namely Hitler and Stalin. I request them to use some logic. Hitler and Stalin did not do cruelties in the name of Atheism or just because they are atheist. But many cruelties are the strait effects of religion. I think people are witnessing many and I need not provide examples. The worst thing is how apostate are treated by religions. People do have their own options and rights and religions should not override them. Many religions even persecute apostates. Is this what religions proclaims as good?

The future of Religions

Do we need God and religion these days? Definitely not! Do god exist and whether anyone had seen him?- Definitely not! Humans had found better solutions to questions but these religions are like bad old habits. Its difficult to get rid of them but ultimately we should and we will! There is no space for blind faiths in this era of scientific truths. Most people culminate religions in the mind of their young at an early age. Even worse most education institutions have religions as their backbone and spread them in the young minds. Teach kids to believe in themselves rather than believing in non-existent 'God' or 'prayers'. If this is stopped I am sure religions would be wiped off faster.

India will have over hundred million 3G broadband subscribers by 2015

Indian telecom market has been growing at a CAGR of approximately 30% since 1995 and still growing strong. With additions of more than 14 million subscribers per month in the pas years, the wireless subscriber base has grown to 635.51 million in present year, second only to China.However, the recently concluded 3G spectrum and BWA auction saw intense competition among the bidders resulting in a revenue inflow of Rs.1.06 trillion for the government, surpassing most estimates.

In this context, the report examines the potential for Mobile Broadband Services, its impact on the telecom industry and other allied sectors in India.

“The transformative power of mobile broadband lies in its ability to enable greater access to the internet in India. Everyone from telecom industry, Government to other industries will be able to leverage a ubiquitous platform to reach out to a wide range of customers and provide diverse products and services more effectively.”

Key highlights of the report:

1. Mobile Services: Positive Outlook- The mobile subscriber base is projected to cross 1 billion in 2014 driven by high subscriber additions in mostly rural areas.

2. More than one hundred million 3G/HSPA broadband subscribers by 2015 and growing: Given the context of non-scalable wire line infrastructure, broadband in India is expected to be delivered on a wireless platform. Mobile broadband using technologies in the BWA spectrum band, such as TDD LTE, are expected to address enterprises and high net worth individuals; while broadband volumes are likely to be driven on the mobile platform leveraging 3G and HSPA technology.

3G subscriber numbers are projected to cross 107 Mn by 2015. Initially, the uptake of mobile broadband services will almost exclusively be in urban India; however by 2015 rural subscribers are likely to comprise 24 percent of overall 3G subscriber base in 2015.

Introduction of new innovative applications, enhanced user experience, decreasing prices of 3G/HSPA enabled handsets would be key driver for mobile broadband in India.

3 Mobile broadband will be a catalyst for changing business dynamics: In terms of service offerings, currently content is largely restricted to film based entertainment and cricket. High speed access will enable content developers and aggregators to generate additional revenue by offering diverse interactive content including local language content.
Content owners will move beyond operator portals and onto direct services via internet. This will also see advertising driven models, offering benefits to the users, with advertisers partly footing the bill. This will also reflect in increased bargaining power of content developers and aggregators vis-à-vis operators.

New partnerships will emerge; handset vendors will be partnering with content owners and aggregators to embed various applications in their devices to create product differentiation. In addition, mobile operators will be using content /application brands to launch new services.

4 Cascading impact of mobile broadband services: Mobile broadband services will generate incremental revenue of Rs.940 Ban in 2015 Ban for telecom industry as a whole.

5 Financial Services, Media & Entertainment, Agriculture and other allied sectors to benefit from mobile broadband: Financial services sector could effectively leverage the platform to reach out to a large base of unbanked customers across India.

In agriculture, mobile broadband would play a role in integrating rural India with rest of the country and help widen markets, create better information flows, lower transaction costs.

Novel X-ray machine is unveiled

Scientists have demonstrated a refined X-ray technique which can spot tiny variations in bone structures.

The technique uses X-rays delivered by powerful light sources and complex computer algorithms to resolve structural variations as small as 100 nanome

tres across.

Using the technique, the researchers have mapped in detail a bone fragment narrower than a human hair.

Synchrotron scale

Hospital X-ray machines work by passing an X-ray pulse through a body onto radiographic film.

The X-rays pass through softer tissue but are mostly absorbed by hard bone - leaving an image in which the skeleton and tissue are clearly distinguishable.

In recent years, scientists have been scaling up the power of the X-ray, using massive particle accelerators or synchrotrons to deliver much larger radiation doses.

While these cannot be used on humans for obvious reasons, they can be used in research work to reveal details in materials which are too thick for use in electron microscopes.

But X-ray imaging has its own problems, with X-rays difficult to focus or manipulate even with corrective lenses.

What Martin Dierolf and a team of scientists based in Germany and Switzerland have done is to refine these X-ray techniques.

Instead of relying on how X-rays are absorbed by different materials, they have instead focused on how they are diverted or refracted as they pass through different substances. This "phase contrast" signal gives much clearer and detailed results.

They also abandoned using any corrective lenses, firing the X-ray pulse through a pinhole and then collecting the diffracted rays after they pass through the sample.

They then used a powerful computer programme to rebuild a 3D image of the object scanned by rewinding the passage of the X-rays.

"It's like reconstructing a broken cup by playing the movie backwards and by doing that you bring all the X-rays into the sample to see how they've reacted," says Professor Henry Chapman of the University if Hamburg, who reviewed the study.

The sample is scanned with an X-ray beam and a 3D image is constructed by computer

The prototype was tested at the Swiss Light Source synchrotron near Zurich, using a mouse femur fragment narrower than a human hair.

The images obtained show detail down to the cavities in which osteocytes or bone cells reside, and the interconnective channels which are only some 100 nanometers in diameter.

A nanometre is a billionth of a metre.

Pierre Thibault of the Technical University of Munich, who is a member of the research team, says the likely applications are in medical research.

"Our method doesn't scale easily to hospitals and I'm not sure that's what we're aiming at anyway.

"It would be more for pre-clinical studies that are looking for instance at the onset of osteoporosis at the nano scale to see what happens at the scale of the bone cells. That's something we're going to look at in the next few months."

He says there could also be applications in engineering.

"You can look at alloys, how at this scale two different metals combine together because you have such a good sensitivity to different densities you can differentiate the two metals that are in the alloy, or maybe look at fractures inside the materials and see at this scale what's happening."

Drugs 'could target asthma genes'

A large international study has revealed several genetic variants which are linked to people with asthma.

In all, more than 500,000 tests were performed on the genes of 10,000 children and adults with the condition, and 16,000 non-asthmatics.

The Imperial College-led research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, could point to new targets for drugs.

Experts said gene testing could not predict who would get the condition.

One in seven children in the UK suffers from asthma, which causes the airways to become irritated and narrow, making it harder for them to breathe.

The reasons why people develop the disease are not yet fully clear, although scientists suspect a roughly equal mixture of genetic susceptibility and environmental factors.

The latest genetic variants discovered by the international research appeared in more than a third of children with asthma.

However, the gene with the strongest impact on children did not affect people who developed asthma in adulthood, suggesting that the two versions of asthma may differ biologically.

Some of the genes identified are involved in the body's system for telling the immune system about damage to the lining of the airways, while others appear to control how quickly the airways heal.

Professor William Cookson, from Imperial College London, who co-ordinated the research, said: "Asthma is a complex disease in which many different parts of the immune system can become activated.

"Our study now highlights targets for effective asthma therapies and suggests that therapies against these targets will be of use to large numbers of asthmatics in the population."

However, parents have been warned that although genes make a contribution to asthma development, there is no way to use a genetic test to predict the condition.

Leanne Metcalf, from Asthma UK, said: "This unique study helps us to understand in much more detail how the genetic side of things works.

"Importantly, it has also shown that genetic testing does not help to predict who is susceptible to developing asthma, meaning that early diagnosis and intervention, and effective treatment for everyone who is affected by asthma, are even more vital.

"However the most exciting part is that these results will now help to ensure that scientists are able to focus their research on the most influential targets for asthma, with the important long-term aim of preventing a condition which is responsible for the deaths of three people every day."