Monday, 27 May 2013

The Largest Flower in the World:






  It looks from inside



The largest organisms found on Earth can be determined according to various aspects of organism size, such as: mass, volume, area, length, height, or even genome size. Some organisms group together to form a superorganism, but such are not classed as single large organisms. The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest structure composed of living entities, stretching 2,000 km, but contains many organisms of many species. The organism sizes listed are frequently considered "outsized" and are not in the normal size range for the respective species.



    
                                                           
                            Thank you

Saturday, 25 May 2013

Underwater Ark Hotel in China designed by Russian firm Remistudio:
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    El "Arca-Hotel" que salvará el planeta:

Friday, 24 May 2013

Apophis in 2029 or 2036:
 
Apophis  previously known by its provisional designation 2004 MN4) is a near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a probability of up to 2.7% that it would strike the Earth in 2029.
Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on Earth or the Moon in 2029. However, a possibility remained that during the 2029 close encounter with Earth, Apophis would pass through a gravitational keyhole, a small region no more than about 800 m (half a mile) wide, that would set up a future impact on April 13, 2036.

This possibility kept the asteroid at Level 1 on the Torino impact hazard scale until August 2006, when the probability that Apophis would pass through the keyhole was determined to be very small. Apophis broke the record for the highest level on the Torino Scale, being, for only a short time, a level 4, before it was lowered.

The diameter of Apophis is approximately 325 metres (1,066 ft). As of the April 15, 2013 observation arc, the probability of an April 13, 2036 impact has been eliminated.

Preliminary observations by Goldstone radar in January 2013 effectively ruled out the possibility of an Earth impact by Apophis in 2036.Of objects not recently observed, there are about ten asteroids with a more notable Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale than Apophis.On average, an asteroid the size of Apophis (325 meters) can be expected to impact Earth about every 80,000 years or so.




True Facts About The Tarsier:

 




Tarsiers are haplorrhine primates of the family Tarsiidae, which is itself the lone extant family within the infraorder Tarsiiformes. Although the group was once more widespread, all the species living today are found in the islands of Southeast Asia.



 

 

 

Saturday, 18 May 2013

Top 10 Plants That Will Kill You:

Ok, I know I wasn’t supposed to do any more plant lists, but I couldn’t help myself. By killer plants I do not mean as in Top 10 Carnivorous Plants, plants that kill little insects, and the occasional rat, but plants that are well known to kill people. All plants contain some toxins as protection against predators. We already know, from Top 10 Poisonous foods we love to eat, that even apple seeds contain traces of cyanide. In this list we are going to look at some plants that contain such high doses, of toxins to which humans are sensitive, that some can kill you in a matter of hours. In some cases, many animals have a much higher tolerance to the poison than humans, and all the plants on this list are known human killers. It’s shocking to read this and recognize some of the plants that you grew up playing around, knowing that just one bite could have killed you, and knowing just how curious children are. Many of these plants’ main victims are children, as they often have bright fruit that look rather appetizing, and children have an even lower tolerance to the poison, so it takes a lot less to do the job. Who knows, this information might come in handy someday.

 10
White snakeroot:

White snake root, also known as White Sanicle or Tall Boneset, is a highly poisonous plant, native to North America. Their flowers are white and, after blooming, small fluffy seeds blow away with the wind. This plant has a high % of the toxin tremetol, which is not known for killing humans directly, but indirectly. When the plant is eaten by cattle, the toxin is absorbed into their milk and meat. When humans then, in turn, eat the beef or drink the milk, the toxin enters the body and causes something called milk sickness, which is highly fatal. Thousands of ignorant European settlers died from milk sickness in America in the early 19th century. It is also believed that Abraham Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks, died from milk sickness.  


 9
Doll’s eyes:


Doll’s eye, also known as White Baneberry, is a flowering plant native to Eastern and Northern North America. The Doll’s eyes comes from the striking fruit of the plant, which is a 1cm in diameter white berry with a black stigma scar, which looks very eye like. Although the whole plant has been declared toxic for human consumption, the most poisonous part is the concentrated toxins in the fruit, which have sadly claimed a number of children’s lives, as they also have a sweet taste. The berries contain a carcinogenic toxin, which has an almost immediate, sedative effect on human cardiac muscles and can easily cause a quick death.

8
Angel’s trumpet:



Angel’s trumpets are flowering plants, native to the tropical regions of South America, but found around the world. The name Angel’s trumpet comes from the pendulous trumpet shaped flowers, covered in fine hairs, that hang from the tree. Flowers come in a variety of sizes (14-50cm) and in a variety of colors, including white, yellow, orange and pink. All parts of the plant contain toxins, such as tropane alkaloids scopolamine and atropine. The plant is sometimes turned into a tea and ingested as a hallucinogenic, recreational drug. As levels of toxicity varies prom plant to plant, and part to part, it is almost impossible to know how much toxins you have ingested. As a result of this, many users have overdosed and died from it.

 7
Strychnine tree
:



The Strychnine tree, better known as poison nut or Quaker Button, is a medium sized tree, native to India and South East Asia. The small seeds inside the trees’ green to orange fruit, is highly toxic, being filled with poisonous alkaloids’ Strychnine and Brucine. 30 mg of these toxins are enough to be fatal to an adult, and will lead to a painful death from violent convulsions due to simultaneous stimulation of sensory ganglia in the spine.

 6
English Yew
:


The English Yew is native to Europe, Northern Africa and South West Asia. It is a small to medium tree that has seeds enclosed in a soft, red, berry like armor. The berry armor is the only part of the fruit that is not poisonous and this allows birds to eat the fruit and spread the seeds without ill effect. It takes a dose of about 50g to be fatal to a human. Symptoms include difficulty breathing, muscle tremors, convulsion, collapse and finally cardiac arrest. In cases of severe poisoning, death can set in so fast that the other symptoms are missed.

 5
Water hemlock:


 
Water hemlock, or poison parsnip, is a group of highly poisonous plants that is native to the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. The plants all have very distinctive small white or green flowers, arranged in an umbrella shape. Water hemlock is considered to be North America’s most poisonous plant as it is incredibly poisonous to humans. The plants contain a toxin named cicutoxin which causes seizures. This poison is found in all parts of the plant but is most concentrated in the roots, which is most potent in the spring. Besides the almost immediate seizures, other symptoms include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pains, tremors and confusion. Death is usually caused by respiratory failure or ventricular fibrillation and can occur just a few hours after ingestion.
 
  4
Wolfsbane:



Wolfsbane, also known as leopard’s bane, woman’s bane or devils helmet, is a plant belonging to the buttercup family. These perennial plants are native to mountainous regions of the northern hemisphere. The plant contains very large quantities of a poison called alkaloid pseudaconitine, which used to be used by the Ainu people of Japan as poison for hunting, on the tips of their arrow heads. In cases of ingestion, symptoms, which include burning in the limbs and abdomen, sets in immediately. In cases of large doses, death can occur within 2-6 hours and 20ml is enough to kill an adult human.

Interestingly, Wolfsbane is also mentioned in mythology and werewolf lore as being able to either repel the werewolves/lycanthropes, or to induce the wolf state regardless of the moon phase. Hence the name.


 3
Rosary Pea:


The Rosary Pea, also known as Crab’s eye or Jumbie bead, is a slender perennial climber that twines around trees, shrubs and hedges. The plant is native to Indonesia, but grows in most parts of the world. It is best known for its seeds, which are used as beads, and have a bright red to arrange color with a single black spot (not unlike an inverted black widow). The poison contained in the plant (abrin) is very similar to the poison ricin, found in some other poisonous plants. There is one main difference between these poisons, and that is that abrin is about 75 times stronger than ricin. This concludes that the lethal dose is much less, and in some cases as little as 3 micrograms can kill an adult human. Using seeds as beads even poses a huge threat, as people have been known to die, just from pricking their fingers on the drill bits used to drill the tiny holes in the seeds.
 
 2
Belladonna:


Belladonna, also known as Devils berries, death cherries or deadly nightshade, is native to Europe, North Africa and Western Asia. It is also one of the world’s most poisonous plants as it contains Tropane alkaloids, some of which cause delirium and hallucinations. Other symptoms of Belladonna poisoning include loss of voice, dry mouth, headaches, breathing difficulty and convulsions. The whole plant is poisonous, but berries usually play the greatest risk, as they are sweet and tend to attract children. 10 – 20 berries can kill an adult, but it only takes 1 leaf (in which the poisons are much more concentrated) to kill a full grown man.

Strangely, our very “intelligent” ancestors of the Elizabethan era (1500s) used Belladonna as part of their daily cosmetic routine. They used drops made from the plant as eye drops, to dilate their pupils, which was considered attractive and gave the user a dreamy look. Not being very knowledgeable at the time, the women also drank cyanide, or “bled” themselves to obtain a pale, translucent skin color, in addition to painting their faces white with a lead based paint called cerise.


  1


Castor plants:


 

Thinking back to the time your mother forced Castor oil down your throat, I bet you would never have guessed that it came from the most poisonous plant in the world (even if it did taste like it).

Castor plants are indigenous to the Mediterranean basin, eastern Africa and India, but are widely grown as an ornamental plant. A toxin called ricin is found throughout the plant, but is concentrated in the seeds/beans (which castor oil is made from). One raw seed is enough to kill a human in 2 days, which makes for a long, agonizing and unstoppable death. The first symptoms will be experienced within a few hours and will include a burning sensation in the throat & mouth, abdominal pain, bloody diarrhea and vomiting. The process is unstoppable and the final cause of death will be dehydration.
Strangely, humans are the most sensitive to these seeds, as it takes 1-4 to kill a full grown human, 11 to kill a dog and a whopping 80 seeds to kill a duck. The castor plant currently holds the Guinness World Record for most poisonous plant.




                                                                
                                             Thank You
 

Wednesday, 15 May 2013

HOW TO GROW A MANGO TREE FROM SEED:

FREE MONEY!!!

 

 

 

Monday, 13 May 2013

20 Most Incredible Light Phenomena {Pics}


Iridescent clouds:
Howard Nemerov said “Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow's speed.” But what about the amazing effects and contrasts of light and dark. In their invisible race to the finish line, what effects or phenomena do they create? We decided to explore 20 of the most stunning images for your viewing pleasure, such as incredible ice and water refractions, natural fireworks and light displays and piercing rays and solemn shadows.


Ice and Water Refractions:



Circumhorizontal Arc

Also known as a ‘fire rainbow’ these streaks of colour are created when light is refracted through ice crystals in cirrus clouds. The phenomenon is especially rare as both the ice crystals and sun must be oriented in exact horizontal alignment to create the effect. This particularly dramatic example was captured in the sky over Spokane, WA, in 2006.

Brocken Spectre:



As the sun shines from behind a climber or other object at altitude their shadow is projected through the upper surfaces of clouds, creating a curiously magnified triangular shape. The effect is often seen in conjunction with the glowing rings of a glory (Heiligenschein) – rings of coloured light that appear directly opposite the sun when sunlight is reflected by a cloud of uniformly-sized water droplets. It takes its name from the frequent fogs and low-altitude accessibility of the Brocken peaks in Germany, a region in which it is often witnessed.
Upside down rainbow:



Appearing like an ‘upside down rainbow’ the circumzenithal arc is similarly formed by the refraction of light through horizontal ice crystals in specific cloud forms. The phenomenon is centered at the zenith, parallel to the horizon, its colours running from blue to red towards the horizon and always in the form of an incomplete circular arc – a complete circle in a similar situation is the exceptionally rare Kern Arc, only captured on camera for the first time in 2007.
 Fog Bow:


This dramatic halo was seen below the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, appearing like an all-white rainbow. Like a rainbow it is created by the refraction of light through water droplets in the clouds, yet the unlike a rainbow the small size of fog droplets accounts for its lack of colour. Mariners often refer to them as ‘sea-dogs’ or ‘cloud bows’.



Glory:

When light is backscattered (a combination of reflection, refraction and diffraction) back towards its source by water droplets in clouds, the shadow of an object between the cloud and source may be wreathed in coloured bands. Named after the majestic effect it imparts – in some parts of China it is even called Buddha’s Light – it is often seen in conjunction with the Brocken Spectre. Here the beautiful bands dramatically surround a plane’s shadow against a cloud.

Natural Fireworks and Light Displays:


22º Halo
Halos are among the most well-known of optical phenomena and appear under a variety of guises. The most frequently scene is the 22º halo, caused by ice crystals in high altitude cirrus clouds, yet the particular shape and orientation of the crystals can create variation in the appearance of the halo. During very cold weather halos formed by crystals close to the ground reflect sunlight between them sending it in several directions at once, an effect known as diamond dust.

Iridescent Clouds:



When the sun is positioned at precisely the correct angle behind clouds water droplets in them diffract light away, creating an intense streaking effect. The colouring is, like a rainbow, caused by the differing wavelengths of the light – different wavelengths are diffracted to different degrees, altering the angle of diffraction and consequently the colour of the light as it is perceived. In this image cloud iridescence is accompanied by a sharply coloured ranbow. 

Moonbow:


The combination of a low moon and dark sky often creates moonbows, essentially rainbows produced by the moon’s light. Appearing in the opposite end of the sky to the moon itself, they usually are seen as completely white due to their weak colouring, however long-exposure photography can capture the true colours, as in this example taken at Yosemite National Park, California.  

Parhelic Circle:



The parhelic circle appears like a white band circling the sky and always at the same height above the horizon as the sun. Usually only fragments are seen, extending from ‘sundogs’ in the directions away from the sun. Millions of vertically facing ice crystals mirror the sun around the sky to form the beautiful phenomenon.




Rainbows:

Rainbows can take many forms: multiple bows, bows that cross, red bows, twinned bows, coloured fringes, dark bands, spokes and many more, but they all share in common their range of colours – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. They are formed when light refracts through water droplets in the earth’s atmosphere, most often rain, but mist or fog can create similar effects, and are rarer than one might imagine. Over history many different cultures have ascribed to them a variety of meanings and explanations from the ancient Greek’s belief they were a path to the heavens, to the curious saying that the Irish leprechaun’s pot of gold lies at their end.

Light Displays:



Aurora

The collision of electronically charged particles in the earth’s upper atmosphere often creates magnificent light displays over the polar regions. The colour depends on the elemental content of the particles – most auroras appear green or red due to oxygen, however nitrogen sometimes creates a deep blue or violet appearance. This particular display is the famous Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights, named after the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and the ancient Greek for the northern wind, Boreas.
Contrails:




The vapour trails that follow aircraft through the sky cause stunning man-made patterns in the atmosphere. They are created by either aircraft exhaust or airflow over wingtip vortices as it emerges into cold temperatures at high altitudes and condenses into water and ice droplets. In this example a flurry of trails crisscrosses the sky creating an intricate pattern.


Rocket Exhaust Trails:

  High altitude winds contort the trails of rockets and their small exhaust particles diffract sunlight into vivid iridescent colours, sometimes carried by the same winds thousands of kilometres before dissipating. The image shows the trails of the Minotaur rocket launched from the US Air Force Base at Vandenberg, California.















Sky Polarisation:

 The sky, like many other things around us, scatters polarised light consisting of a certain electromagnetic orientation. Polarization is always perpendicular to the light path itself and if only a single polarization direction is present in the light, the light is said to be linearly polarized. This image was captured with a wide-angle polarised filter lens to show just how spectacular the electromagnetic charge of the skies are.

Star Trails:



Not technically visible to the naked eye this breathtaking image was captured by leaving a camera with a shutter opening of over an hour at night. The natural rotation of the earth causes the stars in the sky to move across the horizon, creating these wonderful trails behind them. The only star in the night sky that appears stationary at all times is Polaris, the North Star, which hovers above the celestial North. The same would be true in the south but there is no star bright enough over it.

Zodiacal Light:


A faint triangular glow seen in the night sky extending up towards the heavens, the Zodiacal light is easily masked by light pollution or moonlight. It is produced when sunlight reflects off dust particles in the cosmos, known as cosmic dust and consequently its spectrum is the same as the solar system. Solar radiation causes the dust particles to spiral slowly, creating a majestic constellation of delicately sprinkled lights in the sky.






Piercing Rays and Solemn Shadows:



Corona
The Corona is a type of plasma atmosphere that surrounds a celestial body and the most famous example is the sun’s which is visible during a total solar eclipse. It extends thousands of kilometers into space and contains ionized Iron at temperatures of almost 1 millionº C (1.8 millionº F). During an eclipse its shining light surrounds the darkened sun, an appearance from which its name is taken, derived from the Latin for ‘crown’.

Crepuscular Rays:
 
When darkly clouded regions or permeable obstacles such as tree branches filter the sun’s beam, rays of sunlight appear as straight columns radiating from a single point in the sky. The phenomenon, often used in horror movies, is most commonly seen at dawn or dusk and can even be witnessed under the ocean as the sun shines through sheets of cracked ice. This beautiful scene was captured at the Arches National Park in Utah.

Fata Morgana (Mirage):

The interaction between cold air near ground level and warm air immediately above it may act as a refracting lens and produce an upside down image of objects on the horizon, over which the actual
image appears to hover. In this picture, taken in Thuringia, Germany, the horizon in the distance seems to have vanished leaving the furthest posts floating in mid-air, however the blue part of the road is merely a reflection of the sky above it. The common perception that mirages are entirely non-existent images that appear to those lost in the desert is a misnomer, probably confused with the effects of extreme dehydration which can cause hallucinations. Mirages are always of real objects, although it is true they can appear closer due to the effect.

Light Pillar:

 The reflection of light by ice crystals with almost perfect horizontal planar surfaces creates a powerful beam that is reminiscent of sci-fi movies. The light source may be the sun, moon or artificial light and an interesting characteristic is that the pillar will take on the colour of this source – in the image taken in Kaijonharju, Finland, the orange sunlight of dusk creates a similarly coloured magnificent pillar.

                                               



thank you.