Unearthed Facts V

Sunday, September 21, 2008

1. Black pepper is the most popular spice in the world.

2. Better wine can be produced by the soil being of poor quality. This is because the vines have to "work" harder.

3. Blueberries have more antioxidents than any other fruit or vegetables.

4. Britons eat over 22,000 tonnes of french fries a week.

5. Buffalo wings, got their name because the spicy chicken wings originated in Buffalo, New York.

6. Buttermilk does not contain any butter, but is a cultured milk product which is usually made from fat free milk.

7. By federal law, for a noodle to actually be a noodle it must have 5.5 percent egg solids in it, otherwise it cannot be called a noodle.

8. Caffeine is the world's most popular stimulant.

9. Canada has more donut shops per capita than the United States.

10. Cashew nuts contain oil in the shell that is very irritating to the skin.

11. Chedder cheese is the best selling cheese in the USA.

12. Chili Powder was invented in the 19th century in the American Southwest.

13. Chocolate contains a very small amount of caffeine. A cup of decaffeinated coffee has approximately the same amount of caffeine as in 50 M&M's.

14. Chocolate maker Cadbury uses more than sixty thousand tonnes of cocoa each year, in the United Kingdom alone.

15. Contrary to popular beliefs, chocolate does not cause acne.

16. Corned beef got its name because this beef was preserved with pellets of salt that were the size of corn kernels, which was also referred to as "corns" of salt.

17. Due to sugar shortages to make candy during World War II, movie theatre owners turned to popcorn, which is now the best selling snack at movie theatres today.

18. Dunkin' Donut shops located in the Middle East sell donuts that are fig filled.

19. During the Easter season, 600 million Marshmallow Peeps are bought my Americans. The Marshmallow Peep is the most popular Easter candy besides chocolate.

20. Each year 96 billion pounds of food is wasted in the U.S.

Unearthed Facts IV

1. After chocolate and vanilla, orange is considered the world's most favorite flavour.

2. Alcohol beverages have all 13 minerals necessary for human life.

3. All the Krispy Kreme donut stores collectively could make a doughnut stack as high as the Empire State Building in only 2 minutes.

4. Although white wine can be produced from both red and white grapes, red wine can only be created from red grapes.

5. Americans consume the most peanut butter in the world.

6. Americans consumed more than twenty billion hot dogs in 2000.

7. Americans eat approximately 20 pounds of pasta per person each year.

8. An American chews an average of 300 sticks of gum in a year.

9. An apple, potato, and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged. They all taste sweet.

10. An average American eats approximately 60 hot dogs per year.

11. An average person consumes the equivalent of 26 gallons of milk a year, including almost 28 pounds of cheese.

12. An egg shell can have up to 17,000 tiny pores on its surface.

13. An egg that is fresh will sink in water, but a stale one won't.

14. Annually, British people eat more than 15 pounds of beans.

15. Annually, an Australian eats 15 kg of bananas, which comes out to 27 meters of bananas.

16. Approximately 125 people die in the United States from an anaphylaxis to foods each year.

17. Approximately three jars of peanut butter are sold every second.

18. Approximately two gallons of water are used to brush your teeth.

19. Back in 1953, it took 27 hours to make one Marshmallow Peep. Now it takes only six minutes.

20. Bananas trees are not really trees. They are considered to be giant herb plants.

Unearthed Facts III

1. The width of a tornado can range from less than ten yards to more than a mile.

2. The word "laser" stands for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission by Radiation."

3. The world's first underground was the London Underground in1863. It has 275 stations and 253 miles of track.

4. There are approximately 90 people that have been frozen after their death.

5. There are mirrors on the moon. Astronauts left them so that laser beams could be bounced off of them from Earth. These beams help give us the distance to the moon give or take a few metres.

6. There are six million parts in the Boeing 747-400.

7. There has only been 193,000 metric tonnes of gold discovered to date.

8. There is no element on Mendeleev's (the current) periodic table of elements abbreviated, either partially, or fully, with the letter J.

9. Traveling by air is the safest means of transportation.

10. Using recycled aluminum cans and making news cans out of them saves 75% energy compared to making it from new material.

11. When the Galileo Probe entered Jupiter's atmosphere, it was traveling at a speed of 106,000 miles per hour. This is the fastest impact speed ever achieved by a man-made object.

12. A piece of French toast that was partially eaten by Justin Timberlake sold on eBay.

13. Many years ago, a fish was caught that was 33 inches long and seemed to be heavier than it should. When they cut the fish, fishermen found a full of bottle of ale inside it.

14. 95% of the entire lemon crop produced in the U.S. is from California and Arizona.

15. A common custom in Spain is to eat one grape for each of the last 12 seconds of every year for good luck.

16. A common drink for Tibetans is Butter Tea which is made out of butter, salt, and brick tea.

17. A one kilogram packet of sugar will have about 5 million grains of sugar.

18. A one ounce milk chocolate bar has 6 mg of caffeine.

19. According to Scandinavian traditions, if a boy and girl eat from the same loaf of bread, they are bound to fall in love.

20. According to legend, tea originated in China when tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water.

Unearthed Facts II

1. Japan uses the most energy per year than any other country.

2. Just by recycling one aluminum can, enough energy would be saved to have a TV run for three hours.

3. On average, there is about three molecules of ozone for every 10 million air molecules.

4. One tree can filter up to sixty pounds of pollutants from the air each year.

5. Orville Wright, a pilot, was involved in the first aircraft accident. His passenger, a Frenchman, was killed.

6. Roses generally need around 6 hours of sunlight to grow properly.

7. The Great Comet of 1843 had a tail that was over 300 kilometres long.

8. The Hubble telescope is so powerful that it is like pointing a beam of light at a dime that is two hundred miles away.

9. The USSR launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957.

10. The United States has paved enough roads to circle the Earth over 150 times.

11. The external tank on space shuttles is not painted. It is the only part of the shuttle that is lost after launch, so it is not necessary to worry about metal corrosion.

12. The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com on March 15, 1985.

13. The first jet engine was invented by Frank Whittleof of England in 1930.

14. The first spacecraft to visit the planet Venus was Mariner 2 in 1962.

15. The first subway system in America was built in Boston, Massachusetts in 1897.

16. The iron disulfide (Pyrite) is considered "fool's gold" because it looks very similar to gold.

17. The longest recorded duration of a total solar eclipse was 7.5 minutes.

18. The speed of sound must be exceeded to produce a sonic boom.

19. The stapler was invented in Spring Valley, Minnesota.

20. The tip of a bullwhip moves so fast that it breaks the sound barrier. The crack of the whip is actually a tiny sonic boom.

Unearthed Facts I

1. The largest diamond that was ever found was 3106 carats.

2. A Chinese Scientist discovered that the Earth is round during the Han Dynasty by measuring the sun and moon's path in the sky. He recorded this fact down in the imperial records but went unnoticed until it was unearthed recently but Chinese archaeologists.

3. A cesium atom in an atomic clock that beats over nine billion times a second.

4. A galactic year is 250 million Earth-years. This is the time it takes for our solar system to make one revolution around the Milky Way Galaxy.

5. A jiffy is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second. Thus the saying, I will be there in a jiffy.

6. A meteor has only destroyed one satellite, which was the European Space Agency's Olympus in 1993.

7. Bamboo plants can grow up to 36 inches in a day.

8. By weight, the sun is 70% hydrogen, 28% helium, 1.5% carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, and 0.5% all other elements.

9. Cubic Zirconia is 55% heavier than real diamonds.

10. Diamonds were first discovered in the riverbeds of the Golconda region of India over 4,000 years ago.

11. Enough paper is recycled in the USA every day, that a 15 mile long train of boxcars could be filled up with paper.

12. Every 25 miles a car produces one pound of pollution.

13. Every day, the Hubble telescope transmits enough data to fit 10,000 standard computer disks.

14. Every second, 630 steel cans are recycled.

15. Google receives more than 200 million search queries a day, more than half of which come from outside the United States. Peak traffic hours to google.com are between 6 a.m. and noon PST, when more than 2,000 search queries are answered a second

16. If all the gold sitting in the oceans and seas were mined, every person on this plant would get about 20 kilograms of gold each.

17. In only eight minutes, the Space Shuttle can accelerate to a speed of 27,000 kilometers per hour.

18. In the Netherlands, there are special traffic lanes for bicycles. There are approximately 17,000 kms of cycle lanes with special bicycle traffic lights.

19. It takes the Hubble telescope about 97 minutes to complete an orbit of the Earth. On average, the Hubble uses the equivilent amount of energy as 30 household light bulbs to complete an orbit.

20. It would take twenty new mid-size cars to generate the same amount of pollution that a mid-size 1960's car did.

Intresting Misc Facts

01.A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
02.A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue.
03.A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.
04.A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
05.A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
06.A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
07.A snail can sleep for three years.
08.Al Capo NE's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
09.All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.
10.Almonds are a member of the peach family.
11.An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
12.Babies are born without kneecaps.
13.They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
14.Butterflies taste with their feet.
15.Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about Ten.
16."Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "MT".
17.February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
18.In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
19.If the population of China walked past you, in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
20.If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at red lights.
21.It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
22.Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
23.Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
24.A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
25.Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
26.Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
27."Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and "lollipop" with your right.
28.The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
29.The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of die! Sel that it burns.
30.The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
31.The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the l! Azy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.
32.The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
33.The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).
34.There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
35.There are more chickens than people in the world.
36.There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous
37.There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."
38.There's no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewables Vitamins.
39.Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
40.TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
41.Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
42.Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
43.Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks; otherwise it will digest itself

110 Facts about Human Body !

1. A human being loses an average of 40 to 100 strands of hair a day.

2. A cough releases an explosive charge of air that moves at speeds up to 60 mph.

3. Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

4. A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months.

5. A sneeze can exceed the speed of 100 mph.

6. Every person has a unique tongue print.
According to German researchers, the risk of heart attack is higher on Monday than any other day of the week.

7. After spending hours working at a computer display, look at a blank piece of white paper. It will probably appear pink.

8. An average human drinks about 16,000 gallons of water in a lifetime.

9. A fingernail or toenail takes about 6 months to grow from base to tip.

10. An average human scalp has 100,000 hairs.

11. It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown.

12. Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have only 206 in our bodies.

13. Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his lifetime.

14. By age sixty, most people have lost half of their taste buds. By the time you turn 70, your heart will have beat some two-and-a-half billion times (figuring on an average of 70 beats per minute.)

15. Each square inch of human skin consists of twenty feet of blood vessels.

16. Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.

17. Every person has a unique tongue print. Every square inch of the human body has an average of 32 million bacteria on it.

18. Fingernails grow faster than toenails.

19. Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour - about 1.5 pounds a year. By 70 years of age, an average person will have lost 105 pounds of skin.

20. 50,000 of the cells in your body will die and be replaced with :new cells, all while you have been reading this sentence!

21. In one hour, your heart works hard enough to produce the equivalent energy to raise almost 1 ton of weight 1 yard off :the ground.

22. Scientists have counted over 500 different liver functions.

23. In 1 square inch of skin there lies 4 yards of nerve fibers, 1300 nerve cells, 100 sweat glands, 3 million cells, and 3 yards of blood vessels.

24. The structural plan of a whale's, a dog's, a bird's and a man's 'arm' are exactly the same. : :The world's first test-tube twins were born in June 1981.

25. There are 45 miles of nerves in the skin of a human being.In a year, a person`s heart beats 40,000,000 times.

26. Most people blink about 25 times a minute.

27. Each square inch of human skin consists of twenty feet of :blood vessels. : :Nerve impulses to and from the brain travel as fast as 170 :miles per hour.

28. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.

29. Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for :your heart.

30. Every two thousand frowns :creates one wrinkle.

31. The average human blinks his eyes 6,205,000 times each year.

32. The average human produces a quart of saliva a day or 10,000 gallons in a lifetime.

33. The average human's heart will beat 3,000 million times in their lifetime. The average human will pump 48 million gallons of blood in :their lifetime. : :You burn 26 calories in a one-minute kiss.

34. The average human body contains enough: Sulphur to kill all fleas on an average dog, Carbon to make 900 pencils, Potassium to fire :a toy cannon, Fat to make 7 bars of soap, Phosphorus to make :2,200 matchheads, and enough Water to fill a ten-gallon tank.

35. Among the first known "dentists" of the world were the Etruscans. :In 700 BC they carved false teeth from the teeth of various :mammals :and produced partial bridgework good enough to eat with.

36. Ophthalmic surgery was one of the most advanced areas of medicine in the ancient world. Detailed descriptions of delicate cataract surgery with sophisticated needle syringes is contained in the medical writings of Celsus (A.D.14-37)

37. If you were freeze-dried, 10% of your body weight would be from :the microorganisms on your body. According to the World Health Organization, there are :approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day.

38. Your ears and nose continue to grow throughout your entire life. :

39. When you eat meat and drink milk in the same meal, your body does not absorb any of the milk's calcium. It is best to have 2 hours between the milk and meat intake.

40. Only humans and horses have hymens.

41. The tooth is the only part of the human body that can't repair itself.

42. Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell. :

43. One human brain generates more electrical impulses in a single day than all of the world's telephones put together.

44. We have a a whole pharmacy within us. We can create any drug inside us.

45. Our bodies are recreating themselves constantly - we ,make a skeleton every 3 months, new skin every month. We are capable of reversing the Aging Process!!

46. Hiccups happen when the diaphragm, the muscle that controls our breathing, becomes irritated and start to spasm and contract uncontrollably. With each contraction, air is pulled into the lungs very quickly, passes through the voice box, and then the epiglottis closes behind the rush of air, shaking the vocal chords, causing the "hic" sound. The irritation can be caused by rapid eating, emotional stress and even some diseases. The best cure? Breathing into a paper bag. This calms the diaphragm by increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in your bloodstream.

47. The length from your wrist to your elbow is the same as the length of your foot.

48. Your mouth produces 1 litre (1.8 pints) of saliva a day.

49. On average, people can hold their breath for about one minute. The world record is 15 minutes 2 seconds, by Tom Sietas..

50. On average, you breathe 23,000 times a day.

51. On average, you speak almost 5,000 words a day - although almost 80% of speaking is self-talk (talking to yourself).

52. Einstein's brain was of average size (1375 grams - 49oz).

53. Over the last 150 years the average height of people in industrialised nations increased by 10 cm (4 in).

54. In the 19th century, American men were the tallest in the world, averaging 1,71m (5'6"). Today, the average height for American men is 1,75m (5'7"), compared to 1,77m (5'8") for Swedes, and 1,78m (5'8.5") for the Dutch.

55. If the amount of water in your body is reduced by just 1%, you'll feel thirsty.

56. A person can live without food for about a month, but only about a week without water.

57. A person remains conscious for eight seconds after being decapitated.

58. The muscle that lets your eye blink is the fastest muscle in your body. It allows you to blink 5 times a second. On average, you blink 15 000 times a day. Women blink twice as much as men.

59. A typical athlete's heart churns out 25 to 30 litres (up to 8 gallons) of blood per minute.

60. We have four basic tastes. The salt and sweet taste buds are at the tip of the tongue, bitter at the base, and sour along the sides.

61. Not all our taste buds are on our tongue; about 10% are on the palette and the cheeks.

62. On average a hiccup lasts 5 minutes.

63. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.

64. It takes about 3 months for the transplanted hair to start growing again.

65. About 13% of people are left-handed. Up from 11% in the past.

66. A newborn baby's head accounts for one-quarter of its weight.

67. Our eyes are always the same size from birth.

68. If all your DNA is stretched out, it would reach to the moon 6,000 times.

69. Approximately two-thirds of a person's body weight is water. Blood is 92% water. The brain is 75% water and muscles are 75% water.

70. The coloured part of the eye is called the iris. Behind the iris is the soft, rubbery lens which focuses the light on to a layer, called the retina, in the back of the eye. The retina contains about 125 million rods and 7 million cones. The rods pick up shades of grey and help us see in dim light. The cones work best in bright light to pick up colours.

71. We actually do not see with our eyes - we see with our brains. The eyes basically are the cameras of the brain. One-quarter of the brain is used to control the eyes.

72. Bones are 4 times stronger than concrete.

73. The largest muscle in your body is the one you are sitting on.

74. Can you feel the pulse in your wrist? For humans the normal pulse is 70 heartbeats per minute. Elephants have a slower pulse of 27 and for a canary it is 1000!

75. If all the blood vessels in your body were laid end to end, they would reach about 60,000 miles.

76. Coughing can cause air to move through your windpipe faster than the speed of sound — over a thousand feet per second!

77. Germs only cause disease, right? But a common bacterium, E. Coli, found in the intestine helps us digest green vegetables and beans (also making gases – pew!). These same bacteria also make vitamin K, which causes blood to clot. If we didn’t have these germs we would bleed to.

78. The average red blood cell lives for 120 days.

79. There are 2.5 trillion (give or take) of red blood cells in your body at any moment. To maintain this number, about two and a half million new ones need to be produced every second by your bone marrow.That's like a new population of the city of Toronto every second.

80. Considering all the tissues and cells in your body, 25 million new cells are being produced each second. That's a little less than the population of Canada - every second !

81. A red blood cell can circumnavigate your body in under 20 seconds.

82. Nerve Impulses travel at over 400 km/hr (250 mi/hr).

83. Our blood is on a 60,000-mile journey.

84. Our eyes can distinguish up to one million colour surfaces and take in more information than the largest telescope known to man.

85. Our lungs inhale over two million litres of air every day, without even thinking. They are large enough to cover a tennis court.

86. When we touch something, we send a message to our brain at 124 mph

87.. We give birth to 100 billion red cells every day.

88. Our nose is our personal air-conditioning system: it warms cold air, cools hot air and filters impurities.

89. In one square inch of our hand we have nine feet of blood vessels, 600 pain sensors, 9000 nerve endings, 36 heat sensors and 75 pressure sensors.

90. We have copper, zinc, cobalt, calcium, manganese, phosphates, nickel and silicon in our bodies.

91. It is believed that the main purpose of eyebrows is to keep sweat out of the eyes.

92. A person can expect to breathe in about 40 pounds of dust over his/her lifetime.

93. A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before a person realises it's there.

94. The human body has 230 movable and semi- movable joints.

95. Our Brain has over 100 billion nerve cells.

96. The length of human blood vessel is such that it circles the globe 2 ½ times.

97. The palms of the hands and soles of the feet contain more sweat glands than other parts of the body.

98. An average human body contains enough amount of fat to make seven bars of soap.

99. On an average the human body contains enough water to fill 1 gallon of a tank.

100. The human body releases growth hormones during sleep.

101. Red blood cells are about seven micrometer in diameter.

102. The thighbone is so strong that it withstands the axial load of about 1600-1800 kilos.

103. The human heart continues to beat even though it is taken out of the body or cut in to pieces.

104. In an average person, it takes 8 seconds for food to travel down the food pipe,3-5 hours in small intestine and 3-4 days in large intestine.

105. The brain continues to send out electric wave signals until approximately 37 hours after death.

106. Human bone is as strong as steel but 50 times lighter

107. The brain is faster than a super computer processing billions of signals per second. Vishwanath Ananad the Indian Chess grandmaster has many times beaten the computer at chess.

108. Human eye is the only multifocus lens in the world which can adjust in 2 milliseconds

109. The gastric acid in your stomach is so powerful that it is able to eat away an iron table in about 5 minutes.

Facts about the Earth and the Universe

1. The one place where a flag flies all day, never goes up or comes down, and does not get saluted, is the moon.

2. Earth is not round; it is slightly pear-shaped. The North Pole radius is 44mm longer than the South Pole radius.

3. A green diamond is the rarest diamond.

4. The ozone layer averages about 3 millimeters (1/8 inch) thick.

5. A diamond will break if you hit it with a hammer.

6. The crawler, the machine that takes the Space Shuttle to the launching pad moves at 3km/h (2 mph).

7. Summer on Uranus lasts for 21 years - but so does winter.

8. The Sahara desert expands at about 1km per month.

9. Oceanography, the study of oceans, is a mixture of biology, physics, geology and chemistry.

10. More than 70% of earth's dryland is affected by desertification.

11. The US has one of the highest fire death rates in the industrialised world, with more than 2 million fires reported each year.

12. The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth.

13. The largest iceberg ever recorded was 335km (208 miles) long and 97km (60 miles) wide.

14. Luke Howard used Latin words to categorize clouds in 1803.

15. Hurricanes, tornadoes and bigger bodies of water always go clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. This directional spinning has to do with the rotation of the earth and is called the Coriolis force.

16. Winds that blow toward the equator curve west.

17. Organist William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus in 1781 with the first reflecting telescope that he built. He named it Georgium Sidium in honour of King George III of England but in 1850 it was renamed Uranus in accordance with the tradition of naming planets for Roman gods.

18. Planets, meaning wanderers, are named after Roman deities: Mercury, messenger of the gods; Venus, the god of love and beauty; Mars, the god of war; Jupiter, king of the gods; and Saturn, father of Jupiter and god of agriculture; Neptune, god of the sea.

19. During a total solar eclipse the temperature can drop by 6 degrees Celsius (about 20 degrees Fahrenheit).

20. The tallest waterfalls in the world are Angel Falls in Venezuela. At 979 m (3,212 ft), they are 19 times taller than the Niagara Falls, or 3 times taller than the Empire State Building.

21. Although the Angel Falls are much taller than the Niagara Falls, the latter are much wider, and they both pour about the same amount of water over their edges - about 2,8 billion litres (748 million gallons) per second.

22. There are 1040 islands around Britain, one of which is the smallest island in the world: Bishop's Rock.

23. All the planets in the solar system rotate anticlockwise, except Venus. It is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

24. Earth is the densest planet in the solar system and the only one not named after a god.

25. Earth orbits the sun at an average speed of 29.79 km/s (18.51 miles/sec), or about 107 000 km/h (about 67,000 miles/hour).

26. One year on earth is 365.26 days long. One day is 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds long. The extra day in a leap year was introduced to compensate for the discrepancy in the Georgian calendar.

27. Plates carrying the continents migrate over the earth's surface a few centimetres (inches) per year, about the same speed that a fingernail grows.

28. On average, 13,000 earthquakes are located each year.

29. The magnetic north pole is near Ellef Ringes Island in northern Canada.

30. The magnetic south pole was discovered off the coast of Wilkes Land in Antarctica.

31. There is zero gravity at the centre of earth.

32. The deepest mine in the world is Western Deep Levels near Charletonville, South Africa. It is 4,2km (2.6 miles) deep.

33. The deepest point in the sea: the Mariana Trench off Guam in the Pacific Ocean; it is 10,9 km (6.77 miles) below sea level.

34. Earth is slowing down - in a few million years there won't be a leap year.

35. The tail of the Great Comet of 1843 was 330 million km long. (It will return in 2356.)

36. There are more than 326 million trillion gallons of water on Earth.

37. About 500 small meteorites fall to earth every year but most fall in the sea and in unpopulated areas.

38. There is no record of a person being killed by a meteorite but animals are occasionally hit.

39. The Dead Sea is 365 m (1,200 ft) below sea level.

40. A storm officially becomes a hurricane when cyclone winds reach 119 km/h (74 mph).

Weird Town Names and Origins (III)

Deadhorse, Alaska, USA
I thought this town’s name would have an exciting origin but it doesn’t. This town was actually named after a construction company (Deadhorse Company) that built it to support oil drilling and production in the area. I still cannot figure who the heck would name their company…

… Deadhorse?
I am almost certain that they did not sell horse feed.

Ding Dong, Texas, USA
Legend has it that Ding Dong’s weird name has something to do with the fact that it is located in Bell County. The town’s motto is “If you find yourself in Ding Dong, you had to have been looking for it.”

Egypt, Texas, USA
An individual by the name Eli Mercer established a plantation and ferry on the Colorado River. The area suffered from drought for a long time until Mercer provided corn to the region. People started calling the area Egypt for the biblical reference.

F**king, Austria
Yes, a town name that is a swear word. The correct way to actually pronounce the town name is "fooking," which was founded in the 6th century after a man whose name was Focko. This town has a serious sign-stealing problem, as you can imagine. I guess people just don’t believe it when you tell them, “I’ve been to F**king, Austria!”

French Lick, Indiana, USA
This town was one of the earliest outposts in the mid-West and was first settled by French traders over 200 years ago. This valley was a source of rich mineral springs, which attracted animals that flocked to lick the waters and wet rocks. The settlers nicknamed this valley "The Lick".

Weird Town Names and Origins (II)

Chicken, Alaska, USA
This town was named after the state bird, Ptarmigan, which closely resembles a chicken. Since the name Ptarmigan was too hard to spell, and the residents did not want the town to be the subject of ridicule they decided to simply call the town…

… Chicken.
Awwwww the irony of it all.

Crackpot, England
In 1298, this town was originally called Crakepot. The name originates from the old English word "Kraka", a crow and a Viking word "Pot". A ‘pot’ was usually a cavity or deep hole.

Crotch Lake, Ontario, Canada
Crotch Lake is located in the Canadian province of Ontario. The name at first can lead to wild thoughts on the origin. However, if you see the lake from a plane in the air, you will see a sharp curve in the middle of the lake making it look like two legs

Cut and Shoot, Texas, USA
This Texas town was named after a community confrontation that almost led to violence in 1912. There are numerous versions of the story on whether it was a dispute over land claims, design of a new steeple for the town church or who should be allowed to preach at the church. A boy at the scene of the dispute reportedly declared…

… "I'm going to cut around the corner and shoot through the bushes in a minute!"
This apparently remained in residents' minds and was eventually adopted as the town's name.

Dildo, Newfoundland, Canada
This town’s name definitely raises a few eyebrows when people first hear it. No, it is not the Hollywood of the adult movie industry, nor is it a town of perverts. Although residents of the town have tried to have the name changed, it has been to no avail. The origin of the name comes from two possible sources that I could find: 1. It is thought the name came from a place in Portugal/Spain or, 2. It comes from the shape of the headland that forms Dildo harbour.
What?
Did you actually thing I would include a picture for this city!

Weird Town Names and Origins (I)

Bigfoot, Texas, USA
Most of you are probably thinking that the town was named after the legendary monster, Bigfoot.
Sorry to burst your bubble but there is no story about a hairy Sasquatch grabbing and…

… eating the locals.
The town was named after William A. A. (Bigfoot) Wallace, a resident of the community.

Blow Me Down, Newfoundland, Canada
According to local legends, this towns name was given by Captain Messervay. Messervey was an unusually small captain who only stood at 4’2’ and upon his ships arrival into the Bay of Islands, which is surrounded by huge mountains, he prayed that they wouldn't "Blow-me-Down".

Bonanza, Colorado, USA
In 1880, the town of Bonanza popped up that fall. The name originates from the optimistically named Bonanza mine when one of the prospectors told his friends, "It’s a Bonanza, boys!" and the name stuck.

Celebration, FL, USA
This town was a planned community that was developed by The Walt Disney Company. Disney hired top architects to develop the plans for the town of Celebration. Maybe they can get “Kool and the Gang” to sing “Celebrate Good Times, come on…!”

Climax, Michigan, USA
The original name of this town was Clima Prarie, named by a group of settlers who had settled down in 1835. So how did the town get its name? Here is the climax of this story (pun intended). Once again the post office changed the name to Climax when it began rural mail delivery.

Unknown 10 Strange Mental Phenomena of the Human Mind

Thursday, September 18, 2008

The mind is a wonderful thing - there is so much about it which remains a mystery to this day. Science is able to describe strange phenomena, but can not account for their origins. While most of us are familiar with one or two on this list, many others are mostly unknown outside of the psychological realm. This is a list of the top ten strange mental phenomena.

Quote:

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time – of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances – of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it! – Charles Dickens

Déjà vu is the experience of being certain that you have experienced or seen a new situation previously - you feel as though the event has already happened or is repeating itself. The experience is usually accompanied by a strong sense of familiarity and a sense of eeriness, strangeness, or weirdness. The “previous” experience is usually attributed to a dream, but sometimes there is a firm sense that it has truly occurred in the past.


Déjà vécu (pronounced vay-koo) is what most people are experiencing when they think they are experiencing deja vu. Déjà vu is the sense of having seen something before, whereas déjà vécu is the experience of having seen an event before, but in great detail - such as recognizing smells and sounds. This is also usually accompanied by a very strong feeling of knowing what is going to come next. In my own experience of this, I have not only known what was going to come next, but have been able to tell those around me what is going to come next - and I am right. This is a very eerie and unexplainable sensation.

Déjà visité is a less common experience and it involves an uncanny knowledge of a new place. For example, you may know your way around a a new town or a landscape despite having never been there, and knowing that it is impossible for you to have this knowledge. Déjà visité is about spatial and geographical relationships, while déjà vécu is about temporal occurrences. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about an experience of this in his book “Our Old Home” in which he visited a ruined castle and had a full knowledge of its layout. He was later able to trace the experience to a poem he had read many years early by Alexander Pope in which the castle was accurately described.



Déjà senti is the phenomenon of having “already felt” something. This is exclusively a mental phenomenon and seldom remains in your memory afterwards. In the words of a person having experienced it: “What is occupying the attention is what has occupied it before, and indeed has been familiar, but has been forgotten for a time, and now is recovered with a slight sense of satisfaction as if it had been sought for. The recollection is always started by another person’s voice, or by my own verbalized thought, or by what I am reading and mentally verbalize; and I think that during the abnormal state I generally verbalize some such phrase of simple recognition as ‘Oh yes—I see’, ‘Of course—I remember’, etc., but a minute or two later I can recollect neither the words nor the verbalized thought which gave rise to the recollection. I only find strongly that they resemble what I have felt before under similar abnormal conditions.”

You could think of it as the feeling of having just spoken, but realizing that you, in fact, didn’t utter a word.
Jamais vu (never seen) describes a familiar situation which is not recognized. It is often considered to be the opposite of déjà vu and it involves a sense of eeriness. The observer does not recognize the situation despite knowing rationally that they have been there before. It is commonly explained as when a person momentarily doesn’t recognize a person, word, or place that they know. Chris Moulin, of Leeds University, asked 92 volunteers to write out “door” 30 times in 60 seconds. He reported that 68 per cent of his guinea pigs showed symptoms of jamais vu, such as beginning to doubt that “door” was a real word. This has lead him to believe that jamais vu may be a symptom of brain fatigue.

Presque vu is very similar to the “tip of the tongue” sensation - it is the strong feeling that you are about to experience an epiphany - though the epiphany seldom comes. The term “presque vu” means “almost seen”. The sensation of presque vu can be very disorienting and distracting.

L’esprit de l’escalier (stairway wit) is the sense of thinking of a clever comeback when it is too late. The phrase can be used to describe a riposte to an insult, or any witty, clever remark that comes to mind too late to be useful—when one is on the “staircase” leaving the scene. The German word treppenwitz is used to express the same idea. The closest phrase in English to describe this situation is “being wise after the event”. The phenomenon is usually accompanied by a feeling of regret at having not thought of the riposte when it was most needed or suitable.
Capgras delusion is the phenomenon in which a person believes that a close friend or family member has been replaced by an identical looking impostor. This could be tied in to the old belief that babies were stolen and replaced by changelings in medieval folklore, as well as the modern idea of aliens taking over the bodies of people on earth to live amongst us for reasons unknown. This delusion is most common in people with schizophrenia but it can occur in other disorders.


Fregoli delusion is a rare brain phenomenon in which a person holds the belief that different people are, in fact, the same person in a variety of disguises. It is often associated with paranoia and the belief that the person in disguise is trying to persecute them. The condition is named after the Italian actor Leopoldo Fregoli who was renowned for his ability to make quick changes of appearance during his stage act. It was first reported in 1927 in the case study of a 27-year-old woman who believed she was being persecuted by two actors whom she often went to see at the theatre. She believed that these people “pursued her closely, taking the form of people she knows or meets”.

Prosopagnosia is a phenomenon in which a person is unable to recognize faces of people or objects that they should know. People experiencing this disorder are usually able to use their other senses to recognize people - such as a person’s perfume, the shape or style of their hair, the sound of their voice, or even their gait. A classic case of this disorder was presented in the 1998 book (and later Opera by Michael Nyman) called “The man who mistook his wife for a hat”.

The Human Brain Seen as Master of Time

Your brain is a time machine with three modes that control everything from instantaneous tasks like moving to maintaining long trains of thought and ultimately staying in synch with night and day.

That's what scientists say. But they have no clue how most of it works.

Focusing on the poorly understood middle time zone, where the brain does some of its best work, researchers at Duke University summarize this latest thinking in a new article in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

Scientists have long understood human and animal brains to be governed in part by a circadian clock, which keeps us in synch with night and day. The rhythm of this 24-hour clock encourages nighttime sleep and allows many people to awaken with no help from a rooster.

Another clock is thought to operate at the millisecond level, controlling movement and speech, among other vital functions that occur so quickly we don't really think about them.

But in between, there must be a third timekeeper of the mind to aid all the functions that require seconds to minutes of attention. Nobody is sure about this, though.

Interval timing

Duke neuroscientists Warren Meck and Catalin Buhusi call the middle mode "interval timing."

"To understand speech, I not only have to process the millisecond intervals involved in voice onset time, but also the duration of vowels and consonants," Meck said Friday. "Also, to respond, I need to process the pacing of speech, to organize my thoughts coherently and to respond back to you in a timely manner."

Interval timing has not been studied in detail. In fact it may be very hard to look into it.

Meck has been pondering it since the 1980s, but little progress has been made in pinning down how it works. He suspects the interval-timing clock does not reside in a single location, as is the case with smell, taste and other senses. Even the circadian clock is located in one part of the brain.

But interval timing "has to be distributed so it can integrate information from all the senses," Meck said today.

Figuring out how it works may turn out to be more important in understanding the brain that the spatial connections between various parts of the brain.

"I would argue that time is more fundamental than space, because one can just close one's eyes and relive memories, going back in time," Buhusi says, "or prospectively go forward in time to predict something, without actually changing your position in space."

The conductor and his orchestra

Theorists used to think interval timing was orchestrated by some sort of biological pacemaker that emitted timing pulses.

The new thinking is that the various parts of the brain oscillate and all these oscillations are monitored and integrated by certain circuits, perhaps in the basal ganglia, an area of the brain that controls basic functions such as movement.

"It's like a conductor who listens to the orchestra, which is composed of individual musicians," Buhusi explains. "Then, with the beat of his baton, the conductor synchronizes the orchestra so that listeners hear a coordinated sound."

The new paper by Meck and Buhusi lists the various challenges to cracking the interval timing mechanism and outlines techniques being employed. As with many attempts to understand the brain, researchers are looking at what happens when it stops working normally.

Quote:

"When Parkinson's patients are on their medication, they time quite normally," Meck said. "But as their medication wears off, we can see their clock slow down by recording their brain signals."

Genius IQ in Law Of Reflection

Genius IQ today let you all know about Law of reflection. The Law Of Reflection states that whatever you do, think or feel will be reflected back to you. The reflection is of greater quantity, focus and power. It is a law which is not apparent to most people and so they continue to experience problems in their life, so it is necessary to clarify the principles of this law so that you can complement and respect it to further your goals.

1. You should always speak, act and do things in the way that you would ideally want the world and your life to be. For example, if someone were to speak ill of you, you should ignore it completely and speak highly of them. They will then, almost miraculously end up speaking highly of you too.

2. You should be mindful of the fact that everything you do, think or feel will have a physical effect. No matter how small it may be, the cumulative effect over a period of time can be quite large. For example, if i continued to collect 1 cents coins, i would eventually have a dollar and this same principle applies in this case too, in that small changes will eventually make a big difference.

3. We should valid lengthen to make steps to improve ourselves. This will mean the world will always persist to improve for us..


What To Expect From The Law Of Reflection

A. People will become a reflection of what we want them to be, from the way we speak to them. They will speak highly of us, if we do that to them.

B. Increased clarity and focus in our lives if we give ourselves focus. When we know that what we do will be reflected back on us with greater power, we will continue to remain focused to help ourselves.

C. Increased insight into lifes situations. It no longer becomes a mystery why the same situation continues to crop up time and again. We are creating it from what we are giving out.

How Mood Influences Your Choice

People are more likely to give things a favourable evaluation when they’re happy and a negative evaluation when they’re sad. A new research has found how our mood influences our choice while buying things.

A team of international researchers has carried out the study and found that consumers in a good mood are likely than the unhappy customers to choose the first item they see, especially if all the choices are more or less the same.

The researchers, led by Cheng Qiu of University of Hong Kong, came to the conclusion after analysing the effects of mood on choices of a number of people by carrying out two related studies.

In the first study, all the participants were first asked to write about either a happy or a sad event in their lives to help establish their mood and then they were given several mango-flavoured desserts.

They found that 69% of happy participants chose the first option they saw, compared to 38.5% of unhappy participants. They also noticed that when happy consumers were asked to withhold judgement until all options were presented, they tended to prefer the last option.

In another study, three dessert options — blueberry, almond, and plum pie — were presented sequentially, and the consumers were explicitly asked to withhold judgement until all options had been presented.

Happy consumers chose the last item 48% of the time, compared to just 26% of unhappy participants. "If consumers are exposed to multiple options that differ only in global aesthetic aspects, they tend to evaluate each option spontaneously at the time they first encounter it," they said.

Managing Brain Resources In An Age Of Complexity

Managing brain resources in an age of complexity.

When I applied for my faculty job at the MIT Media Lab, I had to write a teaching statement. One of the things I proposed was to teach a class called "How to Think," which would focus on how to be creative, thoughtful, and powerful in a world where problems are extremely complex, targets are continuously moving, and our brains often seem like nodes of enormous networks that constantly reconfigure. In the process of thinking about this, I composed 10 rules, which I sometimes share with students. I've listed them here, followed by some practical advice on implementation.

Synthesize new ideas constantly: Never read passively. Annotate, model, think, and synthesize while you read, even when you're reading what you conceive to be introductory stuff. That way, you will always aim towards understanding things at a resolution fine enough for you to be creative.

Learn how to learn (rapidly): One of the most important talents for the 21st century is the ability to learn almost anything instantly, so cultivate this talent. Be able to rapidly prototype ideas. Know how your brain works. (I often need a 20-minute power nap after loading a lot into my brain, followed by half a cup of coffee. Knowing how my brain operates enables me to use it well.)

Work backward from your goal: Or else you may never get there. If you work forward, you may invent something profound--or you might not. If you work backward, then you have at least directed your efforts at something important to you.

Always have a long-term plan: Even if you change it every day. The act of making the plan alone is worth it. And even if you revise it often, you're guaranteed to be learning something.

Make contingency maps: Draw all the things you need to do on a big piece of paper, and find out which things depend on other things. Then, find the things that are not dependent on anything but have the most dependents, and finish them first.

Collaborate:

Make your mistakes quickly: You may mess things up on the first try, but do it fast, and then move on. Document what led to the error so that you learn what to recognize, and then move on. Get the mistakes out of the way. As Shakespeare put it, "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."

As you develop skills: write up best-practices protocols. That way, when you return to something you've done, you can make it routine. Instinctualize conscious control.

Document everything obsessively: If you don't record it, it may never have an impact on the world. Much of creativity is learning how to see things properly. Most profound scientific discoveries are surprises. But if you don't document and digest every observation and learn to trust your eyes, then you will not know when you have seen a surprise.

Keep it simple: If it looks like something hard to engineer, it probably is. If you can spend two days thinking of ways to make it 10 times simpler, do it. It will work better, be more reliable, and have a bigger impact on the world. And learn, if only to know what has failed before. Remember the old saying, "Six months in the lab can save an afternoon in the library."

Two practical notes: The first is in the arena of time management. I really like what I call logarithmic time planning, in which events that are close at hand are scheduled with finer resolution than events that are far off. For example, things that happen tomorrow should be scheduled down to the minute, things that happen next week should be scheduled down to the hour, and things that happen next year should be scheduled down to the day. Why do all calendar programs force you to pick the exact minute something happens when you are trying to schedule it a year out? I just use a word processor to schedule all my events, tasks, and commitments, with resolution fading away the farther I look into the future. (It would be nice, though, to have a software tool that would gently help you make the schedule higher-resolution as time passes...)

The second practical note: I find it really useful to write and draw while talking with someone, composing conversation summaries on pieces of paper or pages of notepads. I often use plenty of color annotation to highlight salient points. At the end of the conversation, I digitally photograph the piece of paper so that I capture the entire flow of the conversation and the thoughts that emerged. The person I've conversed with usually gets to keep the original piece of paper, and the digital photograph is uploaded to my computer for keyword tagging and archiving. This way I can call up all the images, sketches, ideas, references, and action items from a brief note that I took during a five-minute meeting at a coffee shop years ago--at a touch, on my laptop. With 10-megapixel cameras costing just over $100, you can easily capture a dozen full pages in a single shot, in just a second.

Pacifism or Peace - Shall We Dream Peace? (Poem)

Pacifism/Peace, opposition to war and other violence, expressed either in an organized political movement or as an individual ideology. Pacifism varies from a form that is absolute and doctrinal to a relative and more practical form. Absolute pacifists are against all wars and against violence in any form whatsoever; relative pacifists are selective of the wars and violence they oppose. Most absolute pacifists stress the immorality of the taking of one person's life by another person. The philosophy of pacifism has been propounded throughout history on grounds of morality, divine will, or economic and social utility; the term itself, however, did not become popular until early in the 20th century


Shall We Dream Peace? (Poem)
What virtue can be better-
Than a sin avoided
And what sin can be more serious
Than a sin in disguise
And we all call that diplomacy
Wisdom is more than that

If old enough to say I am young
And wise enough to say I know little
I could be content and graceful
Than any who reached fulfillment

If my pain I wave off for love
And self made to be a second thought
I am a lover far sublime
Far from this selfish globe

All beauty if dwells in your eyes alone
Not to judge but to accept
As what I am and where I am
What complain shall I have than love you?

Can we build this globe a peaceful abode?
Each one, wishing benevolence
Nothing to be super human to save the world
But just live, as humans suffice

Why the love that sprouts in the womb
Changes color in its journey to the tomb
Its man's selfishness and vainglory
To subdue, to own and to rule over

Did You Really Think English Is An Easy Language...?

Let’s face it, English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England nor French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

Quote:

The bandage was wound around the wound. The farm was used to produce produce. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse. We must polish the Polish furniture. He could lead if he would get the lead out. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital, ship by truck and send cargo by ship, have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

Quote:

A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes. I did not object to the object. The insurance was invalid for the invalid. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row. They were too close to the door to close it. The buck does funny things when the does are present. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow. The wind was too strong to wind the sail. Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn’t Buick rhyme with quick?

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this:

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is UP.

It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or toward the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends. We use something to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers, and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP
When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

We could go on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP; so: Time to shut UP!

Oh… one more thing: What are the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night? U-P

PS: BTW I found this message in my inbox this morning and it gave me a chuckle, thought I’d share it with you. hope it brought smiles to you too..

21 Things To Remember

21 Things To Remember

1. No one can ruin your day without YOUR permission.
   
2. Most people will be about as happy, as they decide to be
   
3. Others can stop you temporarily, but only you can do it permanently.
   
4. Whatever you are willing to put up with, is exactly what you will have.
   
5. Success stops when you do.
   
6. When your ship comes in.... make sure you are willing to unload it.
   
7. You will never have it all together.
   
8. Life is a journey...not a destination. Enjoy the trip!
   
9. The biggest lie on the planet When I get what I want I will be happy.
   
10. The best way to escape your problem is to solve it.
    
11. I've learned that ultimately , 'takers' lose and 'givers' win.
    
12. Life's precious moments don't have value, unless they are shared.
    
13. If you don't start, it's certain you won't arrive.
    
14. We often fear the thing we want the most.
    
15. He or she who laughs......lasts.
    
16. Yesterday was the deadline for all complaints.
    
17. Look for opportunities..not guarantees.
    
18. Life is what's coming....not what was.
    
19. Success is getting up one more time.
    
20. Now is the most interesting time of all.
    
21. When things go wrong.....don't go with them.

Optical Illusion Spinning Dancer - Ambiguous Image

If you see the dancer spinning clockwise, the story goes, you are using more of your right brain, and if you see it moving counterclockwise, you are more of a left-brained person.

Clockwise or counterclockwise?But while the dancer does indeed reflect the brain savvy of its creator, Japanese Web designer Nobuyuki Kayahara, it is not a brain test. Instead, it is simply an optical illusion called a reversible, or ambiguous, image. Images like this one have been long studied by scientists to learn more about how vision works.





The silhouette image of the spinning dancer doesn’t have any depth cues. As a result, your eyes will sometimes see the dancer standing on her left leg and spinning to the right. And sometimes they will perceive her as standing on her right leg and spinning to the left. Most people, if they stare at the image long enough, will eventually see her turn both ways.

Perhaps the most-studied reversible image is the Necker cube, which looks like the wire-frame of a cube. The picture also lacks depth cues, so sometimes the face of the cube appears on the lower left, but sometimes it jumps to the back and the face of the cube shifts. A moving rotating Necker cube can be seen here.

“What’s happening here to cause the flip is something happening entirely within the visual system,’’ said Thomas C. Toppino, chair of the department of psychology at Villanova University. “If we can understand why it is these figures reverse then we’re in a position to understand something pretty fundamental to how the visual system contributes to the conscious experience.’’

Sometimes, a person will stare at an image and it will never reverse. Dr. Toppino advises staring at one part of the image, such as the foot, and most of the time it will eventually flip. I tried this several times, but it never flipped. Dr. Toppino says in people who can’t see the reversal, it may be that one underlying neural structure is more dominant, but once someone finally manages to see the flip, it will start to happen more often.

I did finally see the dancer flip, but it was only after using a sort of cheat sheet that draws a line on the dancer’s standing leg. To see the lined image moving clockwise, click here. To see it move counterclockwise, click here.

Job Interview Behaviours: Some Odd Things Reported By HR

Most managers and supervisors (and HR people) have had experiences interviewing candidates for job openings. I'm sure each of you has, at one time or another, been baffled by interviewee behaviour, but we're betting you haven't faced some of the behaviours that we list below. Certainly head-scratchers, and amusing (at least to read about). Strange but true.

Based on a survey published via the Internet, here are some of the odd things reported by HR professionals.

1. "... said he was so well-qualified that if he didn't get the job, it would prove that the company's management was incompetent."

2. "... stretched out on the floor to fill out the job application."

3. "... brought her large dog to the interview."

4. "... chewed bubble gum and constantly blew bubbles."

5. "Candidate kept giggling through serious interview."

6. "She wore a Walkman and said she could listen to me and the music at the same time."

7. "Balding candidate abruptly excused himself. Returned to office a few minutes later, wearing a hairpiece."

8. "Applicant challenged interviewer to arm wrestle."

9. "... asked to see interviewer's resume to see if the personnel executive was qualified to judge the candidate."

10. "... announced she hadn't had lunch and proceeded to eat a hamburger and french fries in the interviewer's office."

11. "Without saying a word, candidate stood up and walked out during the middle of the interview."

12. "Man wore jogging suit to interview for position as financial vice president."

13. "Stated that, if he were hired, he would demonstrate his loyalty by having the corporate logo tattooed on his forearm."

14. "Interrupted to phone his therapist for advice on answering specific interview questions."

15. "... wouldn't get out of the chair until I would hire him. I had to call the police."

16. "When I asked him about his hobbies, he stood up and started tap dancing around my office."

17. "... had a little pinball game and challenged me to play with him."

18. "... bounced up and down on my carpet and told me I must be highly thought of by the company because I was given such a thick carpet."

19. "At the end of the interview, while I stood there dumbstruck, went through my purse, took out a brush, brushed his hair, and left."

20. "... pulled out a Polaroid camera and snapped a flash picture of me. Said he collected photos of everyone who interviewed him."

21. "Candidate asked me if I would put on a suit jacket to insure that the offer I had made was formal."

22. "Said he wasn't interested because the position paid too much."

23. "While I was on a long-distance phone call, the applicant took out a copy of Penthouse, and looked through the photos only, stopping longest at the centerfold."

24. "During the interview, an alarm clock went off from the candidate's brief case. He took it out, shut it off, apologized and said he had to leave for another interview."

25. "A telephone call came in for the job applicant. It was from his wife. His side of the conversation went like this: "Which company? When do I start? What's the salary?" I said, "I assume you're not interested in conducting the interview any further." He promptly responded, "I am as long as you'll pay me more." "I didn't hire him, but later found out there was no other job offer. It was a scam to get a higher offer."

26. "An applicant came in wearing only one shoe. She explained that the other shoe was stolen off her foot in the bus."

27. "His attache [case] opened when he picked it up and the contents spilled, revealing ladies' undergarments and assorted makeup and perfume."

28. "He came to the interview with a moped and left it in the reception area. He didn't want it to get stolen, and stated that he would require indoor parking for the moped."

29. "He took off his right shoe and sock, removed a medicated foot powder and dusted it on the foot and in the shoe. While he was putting back the shoe and sock, he mentioned that he had to use the powder four times a day, and this was the time."

30. "Candidate said he really didn't want to get a job, but the unemployment office needed proof that he was looking for one."

31. "He whistled when the interviewer was talking."

32. "... asked who the lovely babe was, pointing to the picture on my desk. When I said it was my wife, he asked if she was home now and wanted my phone number. I called security."

33. "... she threw-up on my desk, and immediately started asking questions about the job, like nothing had happened."

34. "Pointing to a black case he carried into my office, he said that if he was not hired, the bomb would go off. Disbelieving, I began to state why he would never be hired and that I was going to call the police. He then reached down to the case, flipped a switch and ran. No one was injured, but I did need to get a new desk."

35. "... asked if I wanted some cocaine before starting the interview."

All of you who travels by CAR, Please feel better now

Compare the price of petrol with other common liquids

To know why, see the results below – you'll be surprised at how outrageous some other prices are!!

Diesel (regular) in Mumbai : Rs.39.08 per litre

Petrol (speed) in Mumbai : Rs.55.22 per litre

Coca Cola 330 ml can : Rs.20 = Rs.61 per litre

Dettol antiseptic : 100 ml Rs.20 = Rs.200 per litre

Radiator coolant : 500 ml Rs.160 = Rs.320 per litre

Pantene conditioner : 400 ml Rs.165 = Rs.413 per litre

Medicinal mouthwash like Listerine : 100 ml Rs.45 = Rs. 450 per litre

Red Bull : 150 ml can : Rs.75 = Rs.500 per litre

Corex cough syrup : 100 ml Rs.57 = Rs. 570 per litre

Evian water : 500 ml Rs. 330 = Rs. 660 per litre
Rs. 500 for a litre of WATER???!!! And the buyers don't even know the source (Evian spelled backwards is Naive.)

Kores whiteout : 15 ml Rs. 15 = Rs. 1000 per litre

Cup of coffee at any decent business hotel : 150 ml Rs. 175 = Rs. 1167 per litre

Old Spice after shave lotion : 100 ml Rs. 175 = Rs. 1750 per litre

Pure almond oil : 25 ml Rs. 68 = Rs. 2720 per litre

And this is the REAL KICKER...
HP deskjet colour ink cartridge : 21 ml Rs.1900 = Rs. 90476 per litre!!!

Now you know why computer printers are so cheap? So they have you hooked for the ink!

So, the next time you're at the pump, don't curse our honorable Petroleum minister – just be glad your car doesn't run on cough syrup, after shave, coffee, or God forbid, printer ink !

Penny Stacks

A penny (pl. pence or pennies) is a coin or a unit of currency used in several English-speaking countries.

Newton and The Apple: The Story and The Truth

Newton and the Apple the story we heard: You’ve probably heard of Isaac Newton. He’s pretty much the Jesus of physics. In the late 17th century, Newton practically fucking invented science. The discoveries we can thank him for include the laws of motion, the visible spectrum, the speed of sound, the law of cooling, and calculus. Yes, all of goddamn calculus. One wonders if anybody in history ever had a thought before Newton.





Probably his most famous discovery, however, is the law of gravity. The story goes that Newton, a modest mathematician and professor of physics, was sitting under the shade of an apple tree one sunny day, when an apple dropped from a branch and bopped him right on the head.
While most people would merely think “Ouch! Son of a bitch!” and stare warily upward for 10 minutes, Newton’s first instinct was to formulate the entire set of universal laws governing the motion of gravitating bodies, a theory so sound that it went unchallenged and unmodified for over 200 years.

The Truth: Newton never mentioned the thing with the apple, and in fact it was another guy named John Conduitt who first told the story some 60 years after it supposedly happened. Even then, he was decisively vague about whether Newton actually saw an apple, or whether the apple is a metaphor that he used to illustrate the idea of gravity for people less intelligent than he was (read: everybody):

“Whilst he was musing in a garden it came into his thought that the power of gravity (which brought an apple from the tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from the earth but that this power must extend much further.”

You’ll notice that even then we don’t get the thing with the apple actually hitting Newton in the head, it got added somewhere along the line to add the element of cartoonish slapstick to his genius life.

We like to think complex discoveries happen this way, with a sudden light bulb popping on over our head. Kind of makes it seem like it could happen to us one day, the next great idea will just occur to us while we’re wasting the afternoon on a park bench. In reality, Newton spent the best part of his life formulating and perfecting his theories.

Einstein Flunked Math: The Story and The Truth

Einstein Flunked Math the story we heard: Motivational speakers love to tell this tale, inspiring underachievers with the story of this German kid who was just like you! Despite his sincerest efforts he could never manage to do well in his math exams, and struggled desperately with physics while working as a lowly patent clerk.





The Truth: Well, no you can’t. As it turns out, Einstein was a mathematical prodigy, and before he was 12, he was already better at arithmetic and calculus than you are now. Einstein was in fact so fucking smart that he believed school was holding him back, and his parents purchased advanced textbooks for him to study from. Not only did he pass math with flying colors, it’s entirely possible that he was actually teaching the class by the end of semester.

The idea that Einstein did badly at school is thought to have originated with a a 1935 Ripley’s Believe it or Not! trivia column. There’s actually a good reason why it’s a bad idea to include Robert Ripley among the references in your advanced university thesis. The famous bizarre trivia “expert” never cited his sources, and the various “facts” he presented throughout his career were an amalgamation of things he thought he read somewhere or heard from somebody.





When he was first shown this supposed expose of his early life, Einstein allegedly just laughed, and probably went on to solve another 12 mysteries of quantum physics before dinner. By the time he finally kicked the bucket in 1955, it’s entirely possible that “failure” was the one concept that Albert Einstein had never managed to master.

Of course, this just reaffirms what we have always suspected, deep down: success really is decided at birth, and your life will never be better than it is right now. Sorry about that.