Did you know

An elephant can be pregnant for up to two years.

Did you Know!!!

There are approximately 7,000 feathers on an eagle.

Are Tomatoes and Cucumbers Vegetables?

Neither tomatoes nor cucumbers are vegetables — they're fruits. The debate about whether a tomato is a fruit or not actually made it to the Supreme Court in 1883 in Nix v Hedden. The tomato was declared to be botanically a fruit but for all other purposes a vegetable.

More on fruits and vegetables:

The biggest difference between fruits and vegetables is the presence of seeds. Tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins and peppers all have seeds, so they are all technically fruits.

The strawberry is actually not a berry. It is closely related to the rose family, and the edible berry part is actually what is known as a "false fruit." The true berry of the strawberry is the little black specks that contain the seeds.

Eggplants and avocados are technically classified as berries.

Which Occupations Have the Highest Divorce Rates?

Most people think that policemen have the highest divorce rates, but actually, it's not true. In fact, law enforcement officers are about three times less likely to divorce than dancers and choreographers, bartenders andmassage therapists. According to the U.S. census, only about 15% of law enforcement officers are divorced, but almost half of all dancers, bartenders and massage therapists are. The law enforcement positions with the highest divorce rate are, surprisingly, fish and game wardens.

Other facts on divorce and occupation:

Other occupations with high divorce rates include casino workers, telephone operators and nurses. Though it's not certain, it is thought that the stress of such jobs leads to a higher divorce rate.
The occupations with the lowest divorce rates are agricultural and nuclear engineers, clergy and optometrists.
Married couples working in the same occupation are more likely to divorce than those working in different professions.

Breastfeeding boosts schoolboys' brains, not girls'

Breastfeeding improves later academic performance in boys but appears to have no such effect in girls.
Wendy Oddy at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Subiaco, Western Australia, and colleagues, examined whether having been breastfed affected the test scores of over 1000 10-year-olds.
Studies have suggested that children who were breastfed have higher IQs than those who were not, but few separated out boys and girls. Mothers who breastfeed are on average wealthier and more educated, so Oddy's team accounted for these factors.

Boys who were mainly breastfed for at least six months scored 9 per cent higher in mathematics and writing tests, 7 per cent higher in spelling and 6 per cent higher in reading, compared with boys fed with formula milk or breastfed for shorter periods. There were no significant differences in results for girls.

"We know that breast milk contains the optimal nutrients for development of the brain and central nervous system," says Oddy, but the gender differences were surprising.

Hormone link

Oddy points out that other studies have suggested boys are more vulnerable to stress and adversity during critical periods of brain development. She speculates this could be because girls seem to be protected by higher levels of oestrogen during childhood. She says the improved academic performance of boys could be explained by oestrogen in breast milk having similar neuro-protective effects.

Some studies have suggested that fatty acids uniquely present in breast milk explain research showing that it can help babies become more intelligent. Whether or not these fatty acids help in boosting IQ may be linked to the presence of certain gene variants involved in their processing.

A large randomised trial conducted by Michael Kramer at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, concluded that prolonged breastfeeding was linked tohigher IQ and academic ratings by teachers in Belarussian children at age 6, but found no sex differences.

"These results add to the evidence that longer and exclusive breastfeeding is beneficial for cognitive development," says Kramer.

The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for at least six months, and states that failing to do so impairs intellectual and social development.

Source: newscientist.com

How Many People in China are Over 65?

By 2015, there will be more than 100 million people in China who are more than 65 years old. By 2050, that population will raise to 300 million. At that time, a full one-fourth of the Chinese population will be older than 65.

More facts on aging populations:

Globally, by 2018, there will be more people older than 65 than those younger than 5. This will be the first time this age discrepancy will have occurred.

Though Japan had one of the youngest populations in the 1950s, the median age now is more than 40 years. By 2050, the median age of the Japanese population will exceed 50 years.
The two areas of the world that are aging the most rapidly are East Asia and Western Europe. Though the United States is still subject to the trend of aging, the immigration of many younger Latin Americans to the U.S. is keeping the population's average age down.

Source:Wise Geek.com 

The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries

1-Abbey Library St. Gall in Saint Gallen, Switzerland

2-The Astronomy Library of the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands

3-Bristol Central Library

4-The British Library reading room at the centre of the Great Court of the British Museum in London, England.

5-Central Library of Vancouver in Vancouver, Canada

6-Delft University Library in The Netherlands

7-José Vasconcelos Library

8-Klementinum National Library in the Czech Republic

9-The Library of Melk Abbey, in Melk, Austria

10-Library of Parliament (reading room), Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

11-The Los Angeles Central Library in Los Angeles, California

12-Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (The Austrian National Library) in Vienna, Austria

13-Philology Library of the University Berlin in Russia

14-Royal Library El Escorial in Spain

15-City Library of Stockholm in Sweden

16-The Suzzallo library of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington

Source: The Great Geek Manual .com

Strange and Funny Laws

Many of these laws were established during the end of the 1800s and early 1900s, when the United States was rapidly changing from an agricultural to industrial nation. Some of the laws went out of date or were repealed. Many are still on the books but not enforced.

-In Mohave County, Arizona, if anyone is caught stealing soap, he must wash himself with it until the soap is gone.









-A woman in Memphis, Tennessee, is not allowed to drive a car unless man is in front of the car waving a red flag to warn people and other cars.











-In Kalispell, Montana, children must have a doctor’s note if they want to buy a lollipop.




-It’s illegal in St. Louis, Missouri, for a fireman to rescue a woman wearing a nightgown. If she wants to be rescued, she must be fully clothed.




-In Arizona, a man may legally beat his wife once a month, but no more.

-According to an Atlanta, Georgia, ordinance, “smelly people” are not allowed to ride public streetcars.












Source:http://facts.randomhistory.com/

True Facts

-The Pentagon in Washington, D. C. has five sides, five stories, and five acres in the middle.




-Newborn babies are given to the wrong mother in the hospital 12 times a day worldwide.




-In 1998, more fast-food employees were murdered on the job than police officers.

-Two very popular and common objects have the same function, but one has thousands of moving parts, while the other has absolutely no moving parts - an hourglass and a sundial.




-One out of three employees who received a promotion use a coffee mug with the company logo on it.


-If you know a (male) millionaire who happens to be married, The most likely profession of his wife is a teacher.






-An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.







- 1 pound of lemons contain more sugar than 1 pound of strawberries.










-60% of all US potato products originate in Idaho.






-A flamingo can eat only when its head is upside down.

-The Weddell seal can travel underwater for seven miles without surfacing for air.




-The longest words in the English language with only one syllable are the nine-letter "screeched" and "strengths".

-A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.

-A snail can have about 25,000 teeth.


-A snail can also sleep for three years.

-A starfish can turn its stomach inside out.

Fascinating Facts About Benjamin Franklin

True, Founding Father Benjamin Franklin is on our $100 bill, but contrary to what many people believe, he was never president of the United States. He was far too busy to take on a job like that.

We’ve always been amazed by this man of many talents, and in honor of this weekend’s Independence Day, we wanted to honor his contribution to creating the U.S. Constitution—and so much else. As a scientist, writer, printer, philosopher, musician, politician, and inventor (we’ve probably forgotten a few things),

Franklin did more in a day than many people do in a lifetime. Here are some of our favorite Franklin facts.
He was a high school dropout. Franklin proved that you don’t need a fancy degree to succeed in life—due to family financial problems, he never graduated from high school. (But were he around today, he’d probably have more honorary PhDs than he could shake a stick at.)

He created America’s first library. In 1732, Franklin convinced a group of fellow intellectuals to create a library of their personal books, and then added a subscription service, in which funds would be used to purchase new books for all to read. The Library Company of Philadelphia, as it was called, still exists today, and has over five hundred thousand rare books.

He followed a strict daily schedule. It began with the question, “What good shall I do this day?”

He invented the first bifocal glasses, odometer, urinary catheter, lightning rod, and many other devices, yet never filed for a patent. Though any one of Franklin’s inventions could have made him a tremendous fortune, he wasn’t greedy about them.
He believed that his work was for the common good, and “as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously,” he wrote in his autobiography. We bet he’d be a big fan of Creative Commons.

He created a phonetic alphabet. Franklin’s alphabet got rid of six letters he thought were redundant, and added six new letters for other sounds. As you can probably tell, it never caught on.

As a young man, Franklin created a list of thirteen virtues, and worked on obeying them throughout his life.

Here is the list; you may find it helpful too:


Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.


Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversations.


Order: Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.


Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.


Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; that is, waste nothing.


Industry: Lose not time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.


Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; speak accordingly.


Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty. 


Moderation: Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think you deserve.


Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes or habitation.


Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles or accidents common or unavoidable.


Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.


Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

By Kathryn Hawkins for Gimundo

Did you know!

 Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously

Flamingos Apply "Makeup" to Impress Mates

Birds daub pink-producing oil onto feathers during mating season.

There's a reason why flamingos are so pretty in pink: The birds apply "makeup" to impress mates, a new study says.

Scientists had long assumed that flamingo feathers change color only when the plumage becomes faded by the sun or unintentionally stained by organic materials.

But while studying greater flamingos at the Doñana Biological Research Stationin Spain, ornithologist Juan Amat realized that something else was going on.

"We noticed that immediately after chicks were hatching, [adult] flamingos lost their pink color," he said.

Adults later regained their famous pink plumage, "yet they were not moulting, so we wondered if there was something cosmetic to consider."

Flamingos: Beyond the Pale

To examine this hypothesis, the researchers studied seasonal variations in flamingo color at three wetlands in Spain. The team also monitored the birds' breeding, feather maintenance, and courtship activities.

Using telescopes, the scientists assigned each flamingo a color value based on a scale of one to three, ranging from very pale to vibrant pink.

The team found that the color values dropped from an average of 1.7 in February—the height of the mating season—to an average of 1.0 in May, June, July, August, and September, when the birds were looking after hatchlings. In October the values leapt up again, to 1.6.

Flamingos, like all birds, produce oil in glands near their tails. Birds daub this oil onto their feathers with their beaks.

The oil is well known to improve the longevity of feathers and keep them waterproof. But Amat suspected that the flamingos might also be using the substance for coloration.

Flamingos get their color from compounds called carotenoids, which the birds absorb from their diets of algae and small crustaceans.

Flamingo feathers already contain some carotenoids. But, based on samples collected from captive flamingos, Amat and colleagues found that the oil is especially rich in the compounds.

Flamingos In Fine Feather

Both male and female birds increased their oil-daubing behavior during the mating season, the team noted.
In general, the deeper the pink, the more attractive the bird—so the flamingos were likely applying the oil like makeup to make themselves more desirable, he said.

"We were so excited to discover this," Amat said.

"Other birds, like the bearded vulture, are known to take mud baths that leave their feathers tinged with color. We now need to go and look at these species to see if they are applying cosmetics just like the flamingos do."

The flamingo-makeup study appeared online October 23 in the journalBehavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

Source: National Geographic News

Stunning facts about Horses!

1- Emerging 60 million years ago, the first horse was called Eohippus (The Dawn Horse) and was tiny, weighing only 12 pounds and standing just 14 inches high. In contrast to the modern one-toed horse, the Eohippus had four toes on its front feet and three on its hind feet.


2-The term “horse” is derived from the Old English hors, which is related to the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) kurs, which is the source of the Latin currere, “to run.” This replaced the original PIE root ekwo from which the Greek hippos and Latin equus derived, both meaning “horse.” This dual etymology is perhaps due to the reluctance of ancient cultures to utter the actual root or name of an animal held sacred for the Indo-European religion.

3-Horses that seem wild today (such as Mustangs) are actually feral horses, usually descendants of horses that were imported to America from Spain in the sixteenth century. The only true wild horse is the Asian Wild Horse.

4-No horses existed in Australia until settlers brought them during the eighteenth century, and no early horse fossils have ever been found in Australia.

5-After horses became domesticated around 4000 B.C., many Indo-European cultures regarded horses as a supreme sacrifice to their gods and often ritually entombed horses. People in the Caucasus practiced horse sacrifice as late as the 1800s.

6-A horse’s teeth are a good indicator of its age. Hence, St. Jerome (A.D. 400), who never accepted payment for his writings, penned the famous adage “Never inspect the teeth of a gift horse,” which became the more familiar “Never look a gift horse in the mouth.”

7-Though most horses live for 25-30 years, the oldest horse on record is “Old Billy,” who was a barge horse born in England and lived to the age of 62. The first year of a horse’s life is roughly comparable to 12 human years, the second year is comparable to 7 human years, the next 3 years are comparable to 4 human years a piece, and subsequent years are comparable 2.5 human years. That means Old Billy was roughly 173.5 horse years.

8-Horses have five highly developed senses: taste, touch, hearing, smell, and sight. They also have an enigmatic sixth sense, heightened perception, which is very rare in humans.

11-The eyes of a horse are larger than most other animals', and they can move independently, giving the horse a shallow panoramic vision. Because its lenses are inflexible, a horse will focus on an image by moving its head to direct light rays to the central part of the retina. Horses can also see in color.

12-A horse has an acute sense of smell that allows it to detect nervousness in a handler, and old-time horsemen would smear aromatic fluid on their hands when dealing with a difficult horse. Horses also become nervous around the smell of blood.

13-There are nearly 160 distinctive breeds and types of horses around the world, but the Arabian horse is unique in that it is the purest of all of the breeds.

14-Persians were excellent horsemen and their dominance in the east was largely due to the Nisean horse, the “superhorse” of antiquity. The horse was a status symbol in the Persian Empire, and only aristocrats could own them. Horses were also used to play early forms of polo.

15-Islam is said to have been “founded on the hoof prints of the Arabian horse,” and horse care was even incorporated into the sacred Hadith. The Prophet Mohammed is reportedly to have ascended to heaven in a halo of fire on a horse-like creature.

16-White horses were sometimes drowned in honor of Poseidon, the god of the sea and creator of horses.

17-The Hindus associate the horse with the cosmos, and a white horse was considered the last incarnation of Vishnu.

18-In literature, art, and dream theory, the horse is often a symbol imbued with various meanings, ranging from power to beauty and even sexual prowess. The coloring of a horse is also often symbolic (black: mystery, danger; white: messenger of birth), and the Bible specifically lists the colors of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (White, Red, Black, and Pale).

19-Horses can differentiate between emotions in the human voice.

Horses experience two kinds of sleep, SWS (short wave sleep) and REM (rapid eye movement), and they most likely dream. They need about four hours of sleep out of every 24 and can sleep standing up by a special arrangement of locking joints.

20-In a herd, one gender is not always dominant of another; for example, a female may rank higher than a male in some cases, and a male may rank higher than a female in other cases.

21-Horses have a strong band of muscles around their esophagus. This band is so strong that a horse’s stomach would typically burst before it would vomit.


Sources:http://facts.randomhistory.com/

Did you know!

12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.

Quotations!!!!

Nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, but nobody is equal either. People are simply unique, incomparable. You are you, I am I. I have to contribute my potential to life; you have to contribute your potential to life. I have to discover my own being; you have to discover your own being.
-- OSHO