The different types of tropical storms

A storm at sea can be spectacular – seen from a safe distance. As the wind passes over the water’s surface it creates waves. But if the force of the wind is strong, powerful waves are generated, gathering momentum until a barrier in their path causes then to break will full force.

Not all winds are of equal height. This is partly because the wind seldom blows at a constant speed. When the wind dies down, wave length is maintained but wave height decreases gradually. Where there is no barriers in their path, waves crests may carry over vast distances. When waves created in different places come together, they produce a confused sea state. Boats may be completely overwhelmed by a storm at sea – getting swamped, smashed, or both, by the huge quantity of water falling on them.

The full force of a wave is not realized until it reaches the shore. As it sweeps in towards land, contact with the sea-bed slows down the lower part, but the wind keeps the top moving on. The wave becomes steeper, begins to overhang, and finally crashes down. On steep shores, waves do not have time to slow down. Suddenly, their way is barred and they smash against the rocks with tremendous force – 100 tonnes per square metre is not unusual.

Spinning destruction

Winds exceeding Force 12 (over 117km/h) can devastate anything that lies in their path. They are known as hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the North Pacific and cyclones in the Indian Ocean and around Australia. These great storms start when scattered cloud clusters of tropical thunderstorms are gathered together into a whirling spiral by the Earth’s rotation. At the centre of the spiral is a column lo low pressure – the eye.

Because of the low pressure, air is sucked into the spiral with great force, resulting in violent winds. These set up huge waves at sea, which have devastating effects. Hurricanes may persist for up to ten days, and although the path they will follow can be predicted to some extent, unexpected twists and turns are common.

A water spout is another example of the sea being whipped up. This is rather like a liquid tornado. Warm air rising from the sea creates a central column of low pressure which draws up a swirling rising wall of water. When a low pressure system – depression – passes quickly across the sea, the water level suddenly drops, then rises. A great swell is created, knows as a storm surge, which can flood huge areas as it hits land.

Tsunamis

Just as terrifying as rough seas, are tsunamis, caused by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in the ocean. Small earthquakes occur along the ocean ridges, where the Earth’s crust in thin and hot. The largest ones are along the lines of collision of the plates.

The quake lifts the ocean floor, which buckles and collapses, and the shock tremors suddenly move the whole mass of water above, right from the ocean floor to the surface. As the tremors radiant outwards, the tsunami sweeps across the ocean at a terrifying speed of up to 720 km/h. At first, tsunamis are very small and may not be noticed in the open sea. However, as they come to shallower water, they are slowed down by the drag of the sea-bed and the waves build into a vast wall of water with an awesome power for destruction. They hit the coastline with a tremendous force. Boats are thrown high up on the shore, land is filled with sea water and houses destroyed.

Source :Helium.com

5 Famous Scientists Dismissed as Morons in Their Time

Every nutjob in the world with some out-there theory thinks he's Galileo, rejected for daring to think different. Virtually all of them are, in fact, simply insane.

Yet, there have been brilliant rebels who put their own world-changing ideas on the line, only to end up like Doc Brown in his alternate timeline: humiliated, ridiculed, ignored and/or straight driven to insanity.

Gregor Mendel

You probably know Mendel as the guy who pioneered the science of genetics, and for keeping eighth-graders busy while science teachers watch porn at their desks. Anybody with a high school diploma has filled out those dominant/recessive trait Punnett squares ...
... though astute readers are probably wondering why that technique is called a Punnett square if it predicts patterns Mendel discovered.

What you probably didn't know was that before making his revolutionary discovery, Gregor Mendel flunked his ass out of school and resigned himself to a quiet life as the abbot of a monastery. It had an extensive experimental garden and there Mendel patiently spent the next seven years of his life breeding and cross-breeding peas.

He carefully documented his work and developed what would eventually be known as Mendel's Laws of Inheritance. Then he wrote it up and got it published in an lesser-known journal, the Journal of the Brno Natural History Society in 1866.

His Genius Was Rewarded By ...
A quiet life of complete anonymity. Mendel's work was read by about zero people, even after he took it upon himself to contact the highest minds of his time by personally sending them copies of his theory. It turns out he would have been better off writing it on a paper bag filled with dog shit and leaving the whole flaming mess on porches.

Why did they ignore him? Because the greatest minds of his time couldn't understand him. It wasn't until 16 years after his death that three independent botanists rediscover Mendel's work and started the genetics ball rolling.

Ignaz Semmelweis

We've brought up poor old Semmelweis once before, but just in case you don't have a running loop of Cracked articles going through your head, here's the recap: Back in 1847, Semmelweis found himself in charge of two maternity clinics. The first clinic was a teaching school, with medical students learning birthing, autopsying and everything in between. The second clinic was intended for women who couldn't afford health care and was serviced by midwives, not actual doctors or students.

Yet it was the second clinic that women of all social statuses begged to get into. Why? Because if they went to the first clinic they'd have a 10 percent chance of dying of puerperal fever, a six percent greater rate of death than in the midwife-run hospital. Women literally had a better chance of surviving a birth on the street than in the first clinic. After an exhaustive study, Semmelweis figured out that medical students were smothered in disease cooties from cadavers, and that maybe, just maybe, they should wash their hands in between the autopsy room and the birthing rooms.

He insisted students perform a simple chlorine wash after handling dead guys and immediately got the death rate down to one to two percent. With numbers like that, you'd think the whole continent of Europe, much less the medical community, would have crowned him "king of live babies" or something.

His Genius Was Rewarded By ...
First dementia, then a beatdown at an insane asylum, then death, by virtually the same disease he had eradicated in his own hospital.

Semmelweis didn't just have the disregard of his contemporaries, he had their flat-out scorn. Maybe it was because he didn't get around to explaining himself on paper right away, so no one understood what hand-washing had to do with keeping people alive. Some doctors were actually insulted that he was accusing Viennese medical students being dirty enough to kill people.
Within 14 years of his groundbreaking discovery, Semmelweis just stopped giving a fuck. He got drunk all the time and called all his detractors "ignoramuses" and "murderers." He started chilling with prostitutes and lashing out at family. That last part proved to be a bad move, because in 1865 they had him committed to an insane asylum, where he was promptly beat up and stuck in a dark cellar.

He died two weeks later. It took another 20 years and Louis Pasteur's germ theory for the rest of the world to come around to the concept of washing your hands to keep from getting sick.

George Zweig

The year 1964 was a watershed year by any measure. The Beatles arrived, the Civil Rights Act was passed, Nicolas Cage was born and in two separate parts of the world, two separate scientists proposed the existence of quarks, the teeny-tiny subatomic particles that combine to form matter. If you've been paying attention, you know one of these guys is about to get screwed. (Hint: It's George Zweig.)

Zweig had three things going against him in 1964. One, he was a young graduate student, unpublished and unproven. Two, he was working at a particle research center in Geneva. You'd think that would be an advantage, but it turns out his institute had a stringent model for publication, and his paper on quarks, which he called "aces," didn't meet its standards (even though he had come up with a much cooler name for the particle). And three, an older scientist from his grad school proposed the exact same theory at the exact same time and because of his stature was able to publish that exact same theory with the exact same publication that rejected Zweig's.
At first, both men were called crazy for their insane notions of invisible particles. They had no model of behavior for the buggers and no methods of ever actually looking at them. But eventually the science world came around, and by 1969, Zweig's rival was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work. As for Zweig.

His Genius Was Rewarded By ...
Being blackballed by a major university and accusations of being a "charlatan."

It wasn't until the 1970s that anyone could actually prove the existence of quarks, and by that time, the Nobel Prize committee felt it had already given the little particles enough attention, so it was reluctant to revisit the subject. Nevertheless, in 1977, Zweig and his rival were both nominated, but neither won. Zweig ended up changing his field of study to neurobiology, presumably believing that if he made a seminal contribution to every area of science, he'd eventually get credit for something.

Albert Einstein

Trying to convince you that Albert Einstein was rejected in any way during his lifetime let alone a moron is a hard sell, considering that he was one of the most famous men on the planet at the time. But buried deep in a lifetime of utter brilliance, Einstein was saddled with one big mistake. One that it turned out wasn't a mistake at all.

To understand, you have to know a little bit about Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Not a whole lot, just the fact that it didn't allow for a static universe. Einstein believed the universe had to be static, or else the forces of gravity would cause the whole universe to contract onto itself, which it apparently wasn't doing. So, to make up for this weird conundrum, he invented something called thecosmological constant, an unknown, unchanging force that allowed him to have his cake (General Theory of Relativity) and eat it, too (stand by a static-universe model).

But not too long after Einstein came up with the cosmological constant, Edwin Hubble burst his little unmoving universe bubble by finding evidence that the whole shebang was expanding. Einstein called the cosmological constant his "biggest blunder" and went to his grave thinking he was an idiot for having proposed it. And so did everyone else. For a while.


His Genius Was Rewarded By ...

Einstein didn't get heaped with scorn like some of the other geniuses on this list, so he got off with a little self-deprecation with a side of regret. And he also dropped the whole idea of the cosmological constant. But here's the thing -- it turns out he may have been right all along. Not about the universe being static, of course, but that this mysterious, unknown entity existed in the first place.
In the 1990s, scientists discovered that the universe was expanding faster than they had previously thought and that the rate of expansion was being fueled by a mysterious, unknown entity. There are several contenders up for consideration as the cause, but everyone's favorite? You guessed it: Einstein's cosmological constant. His math of the constant magically fit the bill. Also because you never go wrong when you bet on Einstein.


Ludwig Boltzmann 

Ludwig Boltzmann had the unfortunate luck of being born with a genius brain at the wrong time. Back in the 19th century, there was a huge debate over the nature of matter. Boltzmann not only had the audacity to presuppose the existence of atoms at a time when the atomic model was still controversial among scientists, but also built every one of his brilliant theories as if there was no debate at all. How brilliant? Hang on to your test tubes, because thing are about to get sciencey.

For one, he pioneered the study of statistical thermodynamics, which is a field of physics that provides a framework for predicting how a large number of particles will behave in a system. So, let's say you're camping and you start a fire. Boltzmann was the guy who tried to figure out what the crap was going on in those logs on a molecular level that allowed the fire to kindle, and he used fancy math formulas to figure it out. His work ultimately paved the way for the field of quantum mechanics, which eventually paved the way for the greatest time travel show ever.

His Genius Was Rewarded By ...

Death. He got death.
Back then, defending the existence of atoms was akin to defending creationist version of the origins of man today. Boltzmann wasn't just forced to defend something that would be accepted as fact within a few years, he was shamed for his stubborn refusal to yield and for his so-called materialist beliefs.
Nobody ever told scientists that nonmaterial science is already called philosophy. A long series of uneven debates left nearly every other supporter of atoms silent, leaving Boltzmann as their chief defender. Even colleagues who originally agreed with him began to question atoms' existence when his work seemingly undermined previously understood laws of physics.

The emotional burden of being the only right guy in the world, coupled with what was probably undiagnosed bipolar disorder, proved too much for Boltzmann to handle, and he hung himself in 1906, only three years before another scientist proved the undeniable existence of atoms. Nice job, science.

How much Halloween candy is sold in the US?

American consumers purchase approximately 598 million pounds or $1.9 billions worth of candy during the Halloween season. Nearly 90 million...

source: nielsen.com

What's the origin of the phrase knock on wood?

The tradition of knocking on wood to ensure continued good luck is believed to originate in ancient religions, which considered trees to be sacred spirits.

source: associatedcontent.com

Butterfly Egg

Photograph by Martin Oeggerli, National Geographic

Perched on the tendril of a Passiflora plant, the egg of the Julia heliconian butterfly may be safe from hungry ants. This species lays its eggs almost exclusively on this plant's twisted vines.

Going, going, GONE! Pigeon shuns chance of great escape after being scooped up by hungry pelican in London park

When a pigeon was gobbled up by a greedy pelican, it looked like instant game over for the little bird.
But when the predator unexpectedly opened up his huge beak again, the pigeon was given a chance to save himself and fly away.

Confusingly, however, the dopey bird instead chose to simply sit in the beak taking in the view - and missed his only opportunity to escape.
Not surprisingly, he was eaten up

Photographer Paul Mansfield, 44, captured the remarkable scene while on a day trip to London with his family.
The pigeon had been pecking at crumbs in St James' Park, Westminster, when he was targeted by the pelican.
Mr Mansfield said: 'I noticed a small crowd gathered at the side of a lake that was 'oohing' and 'arghing'.
'On closer inspection I could see what all the fuss was about.
'On the grassy bank a pelican had managed to gobble up a pigeon.'


Mr Mansfield, from Brighton, East Sussex, added: 'The crowd was willing it to escape, with shouts of "Come on, you can do it!".'
'During one such moment the pigeon stood inside the peak, head peering out, with its body silhouetted on the pelican's pouch
.
There was another big gulp and you could see the pigeon slide further down the pouch.

'Then another and it was gone. There were gasps of disbelief from many in the crowd.'

Unbelievably the same pelican then gulped another bird nearby and the whole process started again.

Mr Mansfield said: 'I had seen enough and headed for more pleasant vistas along the South Bank.'

No laps for warm laptops; skin damage is possible

CHICAGO – Have you ever worked on your laptop computer with it sitting on your lap, heating up your legs? If so, you might want to rethink that habit.

Doing it a lot can lead to "toasted skin syndrome," an unusual-looking mottled skin condition caused by long-term heat exposure, according to medical reports.

In one recent case, a 12-year-old boy developed a sponge-patterned skin discoloration on his left thigh after playing computer games a few hours every day for several months.

"He recognized that the laptop got hot on the left side; however, regardless of that, he did not change its position," Swiss researchers reported in an article published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Another case involved a Virginia law student who sought treatment for the mottled discoloration on her leg.

Dr. Kimberley Salkey, who treated the young woman, was stumped until she learned the student spent about six hours a day working with her computer propped on her lap. The temperature underneath registered 125 degrees.

That case, from 2007, is one of 10 laptop-related cases reported in medical journals in the past six years.
The condition also can be caused by overuse of heating pads and other heat sources that usually aren't hot enough to cause burns. It's generally harmless but can cause permanent skin darkening.

In very rare cases, it can cause damage leading to skin cancers, said the Swiss researchers, Drs. Andreas Arnold and Peter Itin from University Hospital Basel. They do not cite any skin cancer cases linked to laptop use, but suggest, to be safe, placing a carrying case or other heat shield under the laptop if you have to hold it in your lap.

Salkey, an assistant dermatology professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School, said that under the microscope, the affected skin resembles skin damaged by long-term sun exposure.

Major manufacturers including Apple, Hewlett Packard and Dell warn in user manuals against placing laptops on laps or exposed skin for extended periods of time because of the risk for burns.

A medical report several years ago found that men who used laptops on their laps had elevated scrotum temperatures. If prolonged, that kind of heat can decrease sperm production, which can potentially lead to infertility. Whether laptop use itself can cause that kind of harm hasn't been confirmed.

In the past, "toasted skin syndrome" has occurred in workers whose jobs require being close to a heat source, including bakers and glass blowers, and, before central heating, in people who huddled near potbellied stoves to stay warm.

Dr. Anthony J. Mancini, dermatology chief at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said he'd treated a boy who developed the condition from using a heating pad "hours at a time" to soothe a thigh injured in soccer. Mancini said he'd also seen a case caused by a hot water bottle.

He noted that chronic, prolonged skin inflammation can potentially increase chances for squamous cell skin cancer, which is more aggressive than the most common skin cancer. But Mancini said it's unlikely computer use would lead to cancer since it's so easy to avoid prolonged close skin contact with laptops.

Source:Yahoo.com

Saturn!

 1-Many astronomers consider Saturn the most beautiful planet in the solar system because of its stunning rings. In fact, Saturn’s nickname is “the jewel of the solar system.”

2-Saturn is the second-largest planet in our solar system after Jupiter, which is about 20% larger than Saturn. Earth is the fifth-largest planet in our solar system.

3-Saturn is not the only planet with rings. Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune also have rings, although they are much fainter and less spectacular than Saturn’s.

4-Saturn is the least dense planet in the solar system, and if there were a body of water large enough to hold Saturn, the planet would float. In contrast, Earth and Mercury would sink the fastest.

5-A year on Earth is 365.256 days. A year on Saturn is 10,759.22 days.

6-A day on Earth is 24 hours. A day on Saturn is 10 hours 39 minutes.

7-The Assyrians, who lived in modern-day Iraq, were the first to record sighting Saturn in 700 B.C. They called the planet the Star of Ninib, after the Assyrian sun god of spring.

8-The planet Saturn is named after the Roman god of farming, Saturn, who was also the father of the Roman god Jupiter. The planet’s symbol is a sickle, a tool that belonged to the Roman god of harvest and was also the weapon Cronos used to castrate and depose his father, Uranus.

9-As the seventh day of the week, Saturday is named after Saturn, the farthest of the seven objects in the solar system known in ancient times.

10-Because Saturn spins on a tilt, it has seasons. Summer on Saturn lasts about eight Earth years.

11-Saturn is called a “naked eye” planet because it can be seen without a telescope or binoculars. Saturn is often the third brightest planet in the night sky and has a yellowish color that does not twinkle. Unlike stars, planets like Saturn do not twinkle because they are much closer to Earth than stars.

Profiling Student Cheaters: Are They Psychopaths?

There are lots of reasons students cheat — lack of preparation, lack of academic aptitude, sheer laziness. Now a new study suggests another explanation: it's coded in their personality.

Psychologists at the University of British Columbia found that students who cheated in high school and college were likely to meet the criteria for psychopathic personality — the type that tends toward a range of bad behaviors, like alcohol and drug abuse, bullying and reckless driving. It's the same impulsive, callous and
antisocial personality that characterizes criminal psychopaths, though, to be fair, student cheaters scored a lot lower on psychopathy questionnaires than actual criminal offenders.

The researchers found that academic cheaters also scored high in two other personality traits: narcissism (people who suffer from grandiosity, self-centeredness and an outsized sense of entitlement) and
Machiavellianism (cynical, amoral types who make it a habit to manipulate others). But of the three disordered personalities — together known colorfully as the Dark Triad — psychopathy was the only trait significantly associated with student cheating.

The new paper, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, describes the results of a series of three studies involving nearly 600 college students.

In each, the volunteers were asked to fill out anonymous personality questionnaires; some participants also took tests of intelligence.

Personality questions included: "I like to be the center of attention" (i.e., I may be a narcissist), "It's hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there" (Machiavellianism), and "I have attacked someone with the goal of hurting them" (psychopathy).

In the first study, researchers determined students' previous history of cheating through self-reports; in the second, they used an objective measure of current cheating — the online service Turn-It-In, which scrutinizes students' written work for passages copied from previous papers, academic articles and Web pages.

The results: according to self-reports, 73% of college students admitted to cheating at least once in high school, a finding that is roughly in line with estimates from previous surveys; rates of Turn-It-In plagiarism were much lower, at 15%, which is also in line with previous studies looking at single opportunities for cheating. Overall, after controlling for other personality types and factors known to predict academic fraud (lack of aptitude, for instance), psychopathy remained most strongly correlated with cheating.

Why do psychopaths cheat? According to the third and final study involving 223 undergrads, some reported that they felt cheating was an acceptable way to achieve their academic goals, such as getting As or winning a scholarship. "It is notable that the achievement goals shared by most college students trigger cheating in psychopaths alone," the authors write.

Students who scored high in psychopathy also, predictably, tended to report a lack of concern about behaving honestly or morally — that is, whether or not cheating is wrong, they really didn't care.

The study's authors conclude that personality can be used to identify students who are likely to cheat. Problem is, it wouldn't be ethically or practically feasible to prescreen college students for psychopathy — and, anyway, psychopathic traits are notoriously hard to change.

"On the whole," the authors write, "our character analysis suggests that the only way to eliminate cheating among psychopaths is to make it impossible."

Sources "Times Magazine"

6 Best Foods for Healthy Skin

1. SALMON

Salmon is an ideal food for many reasons, but as far as your skin’s concerned, there’s only one that matters: It’s among the world’s greatest sources of omega-3 fatty acids. Those are the essential fats that, along with bolstering the cognitive powers of your brain, concentrate in the walls of your epidermal cells to help lock in moisture. Plus, in one study, researchers supplemented two groups of mice with either omega-3 or omega-6 fats. After two weeks, the skin of the omega-3-fed group exhibited a 20 percent faster recovery rate from exposure to ultraviolet light. That gives salmon two crucial skin boons: keeping your skin from looking dry and helping it battle the dangers of excessive sunlight.


Other omega-3 foods: sardines, walnuts, flaxseed

Bonus Tip: Sushi is one of my favorite ways to eat salmon. Use our Ultimate Sushi Selector to make sure your sushi roll doesn’t turn into a belly roll.

2. CARROTS

Carrots are teeming with tiny orange pigments called beta-carotene, and when you ingest those pigments, you’re inviting them to nestle into your skin, fill in blotches, and give you a healthy glow. And what’s more, research shows that this can actually help prevent premature aging from sun damage. But is the accumulation of orange in your skin going to make you look like an extra from Jersey Shore? Well, hopefully not. But eating excessive loads of carotene-rich foods can lead to a condition called carotenosis, wherein your skin stops looking healthy and starts looking, well, orange. But the conditions is rare, so unless you notice yourself turning into a prison jumpsuit, feel free to chow down.

Other beta-carotene foods: sweet potatoes, red bell peppers, red grapefruit

3. AVOCADO

One study published by The Journal of the American College of Nutrition found that people with higher intakes of olive oil had fewer wrinkles than people with higher intakes of butter. The reason: Butter is loaded with saturated fat, while olive oil is rich in monounsaturates, the same essential fats that make up more than 50% of the calories in an avocado. So why eat avocado over olive oil? Both are good, but avocados have the added bonus of B vitamins, which also help to keep your skin looking vibrant and smooth.


Other monounsaturated-fat foods: olive oil, almonds, peanut butter .

Bonus Tip: These foods are only the tip of the super-food iceberg. Click here for 15 more Foods that Cure.

4. BEANS

Legumes, to be more precise. This is the class of plants that includes black beans, chickpeas, lentils, soybeans, and peanuts. And how do these puny pods protect your face? By smoothing out wrinkles. Australian researchers analyzed the diets of more than 400 elderly men and women and found that high intakes of legumes—alongside vegetables and healthy fats—resulted in 20% fewer wrinkles over time. The effect is likely a result of isoflavones—potent antioxidants—concentrated in the beans.

Other isoflavone-rich foods: alfalfa, tempeh, tofu

5. GRAPES

Besides providing protection from heart attack and stroke, antioxidants called polyphenols found in grapes can also help keep middle-aged skin from sagging. That’s because polyphenols improve skin’s elasticity by strengthening collagen, the primary protein in skin’s innermost layer.

Other polyphenol-rich foods: grape juice, blueberries

6. WATER

Okay, it’s not as fun to drink as wine, but water is the strongest weapon you have against lifeless skin. That’s why they call it “moisturizing”—because you’re trying to lock moisture, aka water, into your skin. To put it broadly, all the body’s processes rely on hydration, so if you’re not sipping throughout the day, you’re likely to have a slower metabolism, groggier head, and, yes, drier skin. One study suggested that it takes a mere half-liter of water to create a measurable increase in the capillary blood flow to your body’s outer layer.

That’s just over 16 ounces. Try doing that a few times a day and you’ll have a face like a baby’s bottom in no time.

How planet Earth was formed

This has been puzzling scientists for many years and has still not been satisfactorily answered even with all our advance technologies we currently have.

Many different ideas have been suggested, ranging from the hand of God to the ‘Big Bang Theory’. ‘Big Bang’ suggests that the Universe was formed 20,000 million year’s ago by the sudden explosion of a small mass of material which was incredibly heavy. These materials where called atoms. Where did they come from in the first place? It seems unlikely that anyone will ever have the final answer.

On the other hand, once we can assume that the Universe does indeed exist, it becomes a little easier to think about the formation of our very own planet because we already have the building material available.

For many years, the most accepted idea concerning the formation of the Earth was the result of a scientist called Kelvin in 1862. He suggested that the Earth has cooled from a melted, that is, a molten, mass. He put forward this idea partly because it had been proved definitely by that time that the Earth is losing heat, and also because this seemed to provide an explanation for the origin of volcanoes spewing their red hot lava from the Earth’s interior.

More recently, however, a great deal of evidence has been gathered, indicating that the planet was probably never completely melted. In fact, the most popular theory nowadays is that the Earth, and also the rest of the solar system, where formed from the coming together of a cloud of dust and gas. This was probably a result of the gravitational attraction which all objects have for each other. Scientist think this occurred about 6000 million years ago. This means that the Earth probably formed cold rather than a molten ball.

Science knows from the evidence of deep mines, however, that the Earth becomes very much hotter towards the centre. Where does the heat come from? Certainly, it must have become hot enough to melt many of the original materials. Scientists think this heat has a twofold origin. When the Sun contracted at the very beginning, its centre become hot. This set off a decay of certain radioactive waves which released a great deal of heat.

It seems likely that the first of the Earth’s rocks were formed from their melted parent materials about 4500 million years ago.

Woman Pregnant With 2 Babies, But They're Not Twins

A Utah woman is pregnant with two babies — who aren’t twins — thanks to a rare condition that causes her to have two uteruses, KSL.com reported.

Angie Cromar’s doctors were shocked when her first ultrasound revealed two babies at slightly different stages of development.

"[He said] I'm five weeks and four days in one, and six weeks and one day in the other," Cromar said.
Cromar knew she was born with a rare condition called didelphys, meaning she had two uteruses, but the chances of conceiving in both at the same time are 1 in 5 million, according to the report.

In a female fetus, the uterus starts out as two small tubes. As the fetus develops, the tubes normally join to create one larger, hollow organ — the uterus. Sometimes, however, the tubes don't join completely, and each one develops into a separate cavity, the Mayo Clinic said on its website.

"Probably less than 100, so far, worldwide, have been reported; so she's a member of a small, elite club," Dr. Steve Terry, Cromar’s ob-gyn in Murray, Utah said of her condition.

Cromar’s husband couldn’t believe the news either.

"It was exciting. He didn't believe me for a little while, though," she said.

Although the rare condition hasn’t affected her other pregnancies, Cromar, a labor and delivery nurse, knows that her condition presents certain risks, including pre-term labor and low birth weight.

“Sometimes, these are considered high-risk pregnancies,” Dr. Manny Alvarez, senior managing health editor of Foxnews.com and chairman of ob-gyn at Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, N.J. said.

Alvarez, who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, told FoxNews.com that didelphys is classified as a mullerian deformity. He added that a normal uterus looks like a pair, but this kind of defect sometimes causes both uteruses to have a heart shape.

"Oh, I'm a little nervous, just because I know what can happen, but I'm really excited," Cromar said.

Autism Study: Baby's Babble May Contain Vital Clues

To a parent's ears, there's nothing more enchanting than the babble of a child learning to talk. Now research shows that those nonsense syllables could contain coded signals that a toddler is autistic.

In a study released today, scientists report that they have designed a computer program that can distinguish between the speech of normal children and those with autism. Even though the work is only a first stab at analyzing audio recordings for signs of autism, it can correctly identify more than 85 percent of autistic and nonautistic children.

"We had no idea that this was possible," Kim Oller of the University of Memphis, head of the research team behind the study, told AOL News. "It's very surprising that you can use a totally objective system and get this much information so quickly."

The finding could eventually help doctors diagnose autism early in a child's life. Early diagnosis is crucial, because the earlier autistic children start intensive therapy, the more they improve.

If the computer program proves itself, "it would be very helpful to have an automated way to screen for autism," said Geraldine Dawson, a top autism researcher and the chief scientific officer for Autism Speaks, a science and advocacy group.

Autism is an often-devastating disorder that is being diagnosed in a growing number of children. One in 110 kids in the United States has autism or a related disorder, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Children with full-blown autism have trouble communicating and relating to others. Many autistic kids, even as babies, avoid making eye contact. They may flap their hands and obsessively line up their toys rather than playing with them.

Scientists have known for decades that autistic children show early problems in their speech, but there's tremendous variety in how such toddlers distort their babbling, Oller said. That has made it difficult to use speech problems to help diagnose autism.

Oller and his colleagues tucked miniature voice recorders -- each roughly the weight of a candy bar -- into the chest pockets of more than 200 children ages 10 months to 4 years. The team then recorded everything that came out of the kids' mouths over six to eight days, for roughly 12 hours each day. The computer software filtered out crying, sneezes and coughs and focused on the sounds that resembled syllables.

All children mangle their syllables while learning to talk. But the scientists discovered that autistic children tended to do so far longer than normal children, making it easy for the software to pick out the autistic kids' voices.

The current gold standard for diagnosing autism is a long observation session by a medical specialist who watches a child and tallies up activities characteristic of autism.

The computer program "is the first kind of system that's totally objective," Oller said. "I don't know of any other system that doesn't involve judgments being made by people."

He doesn't think his program alone, even when perfected, should be used to declare that a child is autistic. But audio analysis "could be used very effectively" as a tool for screening children whose parents are worried about their development, he said.

Dawson agrees, saying automated voice analysis could help "improve our ability to identify infants who are at risk." Such a tool could also be useful in countries where autism specialists are in short supply, she said.

The study is being published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Several of the authors were paid consultants to a for-profit company that developed the recorder and computer program. The company was turned into a nonprofit foundation in 2009. Oller said the consulting fees had no influence on his research and that he stopped accepting them when he decided to write this paper.

Just hanging around: The illusionist who defies the laws of gravity

it just doesn't seem right.

Hanging in the air with his arm casually pressed against the wall Johan Lorbeer appears to defy the laws of gravity and be able to float 10ft off the ground.

The German-born artist chats with the audience during the performance and encourages them to buy into the belief that is indeed floating.

His 'still life' performances have built up a steady following across Europe and his repertoire of illusions include one where he appears to be standing horizontally out from a street wall dressed as a street cleaner.

Johan has been working on his act since the late 1970s and believes his work is defined in the 'dynamic area between act and sculpture'.

In these pictures the illusionist performs his act before bewildered people in the streets of Madrid.

Remaining in these positions for hours at a time he says that he is acting in the manner of a sculpture or statue.

Quite how he manages the illusions remains his secret. However it is rumoured to involved ladders, mirrors and fake arms. One theory has it that Johan holds on to a fake arm attached to the wall and then balances against it.

Johan, however, offers a more enigmatic explanation: 'My point of view standing on the wall acts normally; that is to say vertically.

'The optical perception redefines the wall as the floor, which is why from my position I perceive the observers as positioned against the wall.'

Japanese Scientists Create Touchable Holograms

Researchers at Tokyo University have come up with a technology that is a first and significant step away from the mouse and keyboard – touchable holograms.

[Hiroyuki Shinoda, Professor, Tokyo University]:

"Up until now, holography has been for the eyes only, and if you'd try to touch it, your hand would go right through. But now we have a technology that also adds the sensation of touch to holograms."

The technology consists of software that uses ultrasonic waves to create pressure on the hand of a user “touching” the projected hologram.

Researchers are using two Wiimotes from Nintendo’s Wii gaming system to track a user’s hand.

The technology was introduced at SIGGRAPH, an annual computer graphics conference, and has so far only been tested with relatively simple objects.

But its inventors have big plans for touchable holograms in the future.

[Hiroyuki Shinoda, Professor, Tokyo University]:

"For example, it's been shown that in hospitals, there can be contamination between people due to objects that are touched communally. But if you can change the switches and such into a virtual switch, then you no longer have worry about touch contamination. This is one application that's quite easy to see."

Touchable holograms could be used for a wide variety of things... everything from light switches to books with each appearing when needed, and then disappearing when not.

And holograms could replace the need for making new interfaces for technology, since they could be changed without having to make a new physical product.

What Your Workspace Says About You !

If you spend a lot of time at a desk, personalizing the space makes sense--whether it's a private corner office or a shared cubicle. But just as your clothes and body language make an impression on others, your workspace gives coworkers and clients a distinct impression about you. 

Plants, books, artwork--even your name plaque--transmit clues about your efficiency, your sociability, and your competence, experts say. "Everything in your office sends a message, whether you want it to or not," says Lisa Marie Luccioni, an adjunct professor of communication at the University of Cincinnati.

So what might they be thinking when they see your space?

You'd rather be fishing (or skiing, or skydiving, or building birdhouses). Evidence: Pictures and artifacts from your hobby on every surface.

There's a delicate balance between sharing your interests and giving the impression that you're daydreaming all day about jumping out of planes or skiing, according to Barbara Pachter, business etiquette expert and the author of "New Rules at Work": "Pictures of your hobby are good conversation starters, but if you have too many of them, it makes people wonder whether you're really daydreaming about fly-fishing."


They can hang around. Evidence: A full candy dish, aspirin in the drawer, well-tended plants, pictures of children and babies.

"Things like an open door, candy, a comfortable guest chair, and photos of people--but not pictures of objects--signal an extroverted workspace that people will feel free to linger in," says Sam Gosling, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas.

They shouldn't hang around. Evidence: Flimsy guest chair, guest chair covered in files, or no guest chair. Your desk faces away from guests. Minimal or no decoration.

"Even if your office has photos or artwork, but they're images of things and not people, [people] can make an assumption you're more introverted and might not want them to linger," Gosling says.

You demand respect. Evidence: Multiple degrees on the wall, awards on the shelf, pictures of you and important people, magazines featuring articles about you. The plaque on your desk says your full name and title, and lists your advanced degrees.

"Name plaques form a strong impression. If it says just your first name, people assume you're friendly and approachable. If it has a formal title, they think you want to be respected for your rank," Luccioni says.

You've just been hired, you've just been fired, or you'd like to leave soon. Or you'd rather be temping. Evidence: Files in boxes, no decorations, no books, no plants, no pictures, and no name plaque.

They should avoid doing business with you. Evidence: Messy piles of papers on every surface. Half-eaten donuts atop teetering stacks of binders. Carpet stains.

Experts agree that a messy office can seriously damage your reputation as a conscientious person. "It's hard to function in a messy office, and people assume your office chaos will spill over to their project and their files will be lost in your mess," Pachter says.

Gosling pointed to research that shows people read much more than they should into a messy office. "People think that someone with a messy office is less agreeable, which may not be accurate. My guess is, people assume a mess is inconsiderate."

You don't take the whole "work thing" too seriously. Evidence: Humorous posters, ironic bumper stickers, whimsical images, and toys.

Conscious Decorating

Experts have several suggestions on making sure your workspace matches the image you want to project.

Err on the conservative side. Especially if clients visit you or if you're in a high-traffic area, you want to make sure people don't stop in their tracks to gawk at your collection of teddy bears or tiki torches.

Be careful with controversial items. "Consider the cost:reward ratio of putting up something like a political campaign poster," Luccioni says. "You might find kindred spirits, or you might offend people and get a first meeting off to a bad start." All experts say anything potentially racist, sexist, or homophobic, or otherwise disparaging of a group, is a no-no.

Check your employee handbook, or ask HR. Your company probably has some guidelines on decorating your work space. They might not even permit any decoration, which makes the issue moot.

Follow industry norms. Some industries demand a strict image of seriousness, while others are more laid-back. A poster with a funny or counterculture slogan would be more appropriate in the office of an advertising copywriter than the office a defense attorney.


Consider the physical arrangement. "A desk can act as a barrier and give formality, which is good for reviews but can be intimidating," Luccioni says. She adds that a small circular table allows everyone to meet on an equal basis. A power difference, if you want that, can be achieved by giving guests smaller, flimsier chairs.

And if you tend to make snap judgments about others' offices, try to look at the bigger picture, Gosling recommends.

"Any one item can have many different purposes. If someone has a plant, maybe they have a green thumb, maybe they're into feng shui, or maybe the plant was left over from the last person in that office. If you see someone with a super neat desk, how do you know whether they're truly neat, or whether they swept everything into a drawer before you stopped by?"

Human Brains "Evolve" Become Less Monkey-Like With Age

John Roach

for National Geographic News

Brain regions that grow the most outside the womb are the same areas that expanded the most during evolution from monkeys to humans, a new study says.

As the human brain matures, it expands in a "strikingly nonuniform" fashion, according to researchers who compared MRI scans of 12 infant brains with scans of 12 young adult brains.

The research revealed that brain regions involved in higher cognitive and executive processes—such as language and reasoning—grow about twice as much as regions associated with basic senses such vision and hearing, said study leader Jason Hill, a neurobiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

"The parts of the [brain] that have grown the most to make us uniquely humans are the same regions that tend to grow the most postnatally," Hill said.

Hill and colleagues also compared the new human-brain scans with brain scans of macaque monkeys.

The results suggest that the expansion patterns in infant brains are "remarkably similar" to how human brains have changed since humans and macaques diverged from a common ancestor about 25 million years ago.

Early Human Brain Primed for Survival?

Hill and colleagues suspect that development of the human brains' higher cognitive and executive regions may be delayed to allow them to be shaped by early life experiences.

The delay could help keep a fetus's brain from growing too big to fit through his or her mother's pelvis.
"It is evolutionarily advantageous to put those resources more into the maturation of regions that are better suited to early survival, such as being able to see and recognize your mother," Hill said.

Brain Research May Help Preemies 

The researchers hope that the new brain discovery can help uncover where and how the development of some premature babies goes awry.
"We know that 30 to 50 percent of preterm infants have some kind of lasting neurodevelopmental problem," Hill said, "and in a lot of cases we don't necessarily know why."

10 Most Exotic Fruits

Squared Watermelon

For years consumers have struggled to fit the large round fruit in their refrigerators. And then there was the problem of trying to cut the fruit when it kept rolling around. But 20 years ago a forward-thinking farmer on Japan's south-western island of Shikoku solved the problem. The farmer, from Zentsuji, in Kagawa prefecture, came up with the idea of making a cube-shaped watermelon which could easily be packed and stored. To make it happen, farmers grew the melons in glass boxes and the fruit then naturally assumed the same shape. Today the cuboid watermelons are hand-picked and shipped all over Japan. But the fruit, on sale in a selection of department stores and upmarket supermarkets, appeals mainly to the wealthy and fashion-conscious of Tokyo and Osaka, Japan's two major cities. Each melon sells for 10,000 yen, equivalent to about $83. It is almost double, or even triple than of a normal watermelon

Pomegranate

The pomegranate is native from Iran to the Himalayas in northern India and was cultivated and naturalized over the whole Mediterranean region since ancient times. The LA Times recently labelled pomegranate as ‘one of the most trendiest and versatile fruit on the market', and it could be good for you (another fruit sold for its ‘medical values'). Packed with antioxidants, pomegranate juice is now on the red carpet, and even the stars at the Oscars drink the dark red liquid.

Dragon fruit

A pitaya is the fruit of several cactus species, most importantly of the genus Hylocereus (sweet pitayas). These fruit are commonly known as dragon fruit. The fruit can weigh from 150 to 600 grams. To prepare a pitaya for consumption, the fruit is cut open to expose the flesh. The fruit's texture is sometimes likened to that of the kiwifruit due to the presence of black crunchy seeds. The flesh, which is eaten raw, is mildly sweet and low in calories; dragon fruit should not be used to accompany strong-tasting food – except to "clean the palate" between dishes. The seeds are eaten together with the flesh, but they are indigestible unless chewed. The fruit is also converted into juice or wine, or used to flavour other beverages. The flowers can be eaten or steeped as tea.

Kiwano

The horned melon (Cucumis metuliferus), also called African horned cucumber or kiwano, is an annual vine in the cucumber and melon family. Often known by its nickname in the southeastern United States - blowfish fruit - it is grown for its fruit, which looks like an oval melon with horn-like spines. The fruit of this plant is edible, but it is used as often for decoration as for food. When ripe, it has a yellow-orange skin and a lime green jelly-like flesh. The horned melon is native to Africa, and it is now grown in California, Chile, Australia and New Zealand as well.

Star fruit

The star fruit or carambola is a tropical fruit that is gaining popularity in the United States. This fruit acquired its name from the five pointed star shape when cut across the middle of the fruit. It has a waxy, golden yellow to green color skin with a complicated flavor combination that includes plums, pineapples, and lemons.

Rambutan

This is the strangest looking fruit ever. Rambutan in Malay, Indonesian, and Filipino literally means hairy, caused by the 'hair' that covers this fruit. On the outside it's magenta with green hairy legs all over it. From the outside you'd have no idea what to expect on the inside. Inside it's similar to a lychee fruit. It looks sort of clear and gummy. It's very watery and has a huge seed in the center. It tastes pretty decent, but it's the look of the ramputan that puts it in the top ten.

Ackee

Ackee is Jamaica's national fruit. The fruit was imported to Jamaica from West Africa (probably on a slave ship) before 1778. Since then it has become a major feature of various Caribbean cuisines, and is also cultivated in tropical and subtropical areas elsewhere around the world. The fruit of the ackee is not edible in its entirety. Only the inner, fleshy yellow arils are consumed. It is extremely poisonous in the very center if you eat the red bits.

Mangosteen

Called ‘mangkut', these are the ‘queen of Thai fruits' with their elegant, segmented white–flesh inside a thick large purple peel. They grow in the South and the season lasts just a few months of the year, mainly from May to September. If you are here in Thailand at that time be sure to enjoy this delicious and luxurious sweet fruit.

Buddha's Hand

Ever heard of a Fingered Citron? How about a Buddha's Hand? It's a weird -looking citrus that has green or rich yellow tapering fingers or segments attached to a base – the appearance is not unlike a curled, arthritic hand, only there are usually many more than 5 fingers! But what on earth do you do with a Buddha's Hand? Do you eat it? Well, yes, and no. Its thick, lemony rind and pith (the white part) is often candied into a delicious citrus delicacy, infused with spirits or made into liqueurs. However, the small amount of inside flesh is quite sour and rarely used in food. The Buddha's Hand and other members of the Citron family are also prized for their aromatic citrus oils and used in perfumes and sometimes kept in homes as a natural air deodorizer.

Urucu

You can count on finding the Urucu plant (Bixa orellana) around every rural household in the Amazon. Achiote (Bixa orellana) is a shrub or small tree from the tropical region of the Americas. It is cultivated there and in Southeast Asia, where it was introduced by the Spanish in the 17th century. It is best known as the source of the natural pigment annatto, produced from the fruit. Originally from Africa is considered a melon. It tastes sweeter than the traditional red watermelon.

Two New "Walking" Batfish Species Found

New bottom-dwellers live in path of Gulf oil spill.

Two new species of bottom-dwelling "walking" fish have been found in the Gulf of Mexico—right in the path of the Gulf oil spill, experts say.

Small enough to fit in a person's palm, members of the two species of pancake batfish might already be threatened by the ongoing Deepwater Horizon spill and the oil-dispersing chemicals being used in its cleanup, experts say.

The new fish are so named because they are flat and can use their stout, arm-like fins to shamble along the seafloor with a stilted gait, reminiscent of a walking bat.

Once thought to be part of a known, widespread species, the batfish are actually three separate species, according to a recent physical reexamination of museum specimens. The species discoveries—to be described in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Fish Biology—were made before the Gulf oil spill began on April 20.
One of the new species, H. intermedius, is found only in the Gulf of Mexico (see map), including parts—such as coastal Louisiana—that are already heavily affected by the oil spill.

The other new batfish, H. bispinosus, lives along the northeastern Gulf coast, as well as along the eastern coasts of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Oil has begun to dirty the western coast of Florida in recent weeks. 

"If we are still finding new species of fishes in the Gulf, imagine how much diversity ... is out there that we do not know about," study co-author John Sparks, a fish biologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, said in a statement.

Toxic Oil Poses Many Threats to Batfish 

There are several ways the oil could harm the newfound fish.

For one, floating slicks of oil may be killing the pancake batfishes' plankton food supply.

Adult pancake batfish on the seafloor could be immediately harmed by oil gushing from the broken wellhead.
And the toxic crude may also kill off the fishes' eggs and larvae, which travel on the ocean's surface, said study co-author Prosanta Chakrabarty, a fish biologist at Louisiana State University.

What's more, chemical dispersants used to break up the oil into smaller droplets for easier digestion by microbes may be toxic to the fish, he said.

As a drastic measure to contain the disaster, cleanup crews have been applying dispersants underwater directly at the source of spill. However, it's unknown how—or even if—dispersants applied at depths biodegrade in the same way that they do at the surface.

Dispersed Oil's Impact on Fish Unknown

It's also unclear whether the right kinds of microbes exist in deep ocean to digest the oil once it's broken up by dispersants, Chakrabarty pointed out.

"How the oil breaks down and how it's affecting the fish is totally unknown. This shouldn't have been done without a study beforehand," he added.


"I'm afraid that next year when there's no oil on the surface, people will forget about it.

"People are going to say everything's fine in the Gulf," he said, "when in fact terrible things are still going on below the surface."

First implantable telescope for vision

WASHINGTON – U.S. health officials have approved a first-of-its-kind technology to counter a leading cause of blindness in older adults — a tiny telescope implanted inside the eye.

The Implantable Miniature Telescope aims to help in the end stages of incurable age-related macular degeneration, a creeping loss of central vision that blocks reading, watching TV, eventually even recognizing faces.

The idea: Surgically insert the Implantable Miniature Telescope into one eye for better central vision, while leaving the other eye alone to provide peripheral vision. The brain must fuse two views into a single image, and the Food and Drug Administration warned Tuesday that patients need post-surgery rehabilitation to make it work.

There's little to help such advanced patients today aside from difficult-to-use handheld or glasses-mounted telescopes, while the new implanted telescope — smaller than a pea — can improve quality of life for the right candidate, said Dr. Malvina Eydelman, FDA's ophthalmic devices chief.

But it's only for a subset of the nearly 2 million Americans with advanced macular degeneration, Eydelman warned: Those 75 and older, with a certain degree of vision loss, who also need a cataract removed. In fact, the FDA took the highly unusual step of requiring that patients and their surgeons sign a detailed "acceptance of risk agreement" before surgery, acknowledging potential side effects — including corneal damage and worsened vision — and the need for lots of testing to determine who's a candidate.

"We're not giving people back 20-year-old eyes," cautioned ophthalmic surgeon Dr. Kathryn Colby of Harvard and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. She helped lead manufacturer VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies' study of the implant.
But by magnifying images onto more of the retina than its diseased center, someone who before couldn't see an entire face might now miss only the nose, Colby said.

In a 219-patient study, the FDA said 90 percent of telescope recipients had their vision improve by at least two lines on an eye chart, and three-quarters went from severe to moderate vision impairment.

Concern about damage to the inside lining of the cornea, the eye's clear front covering that helps focus light, held up FDA approval for several years. In that study, 10 eyes had serious corneal swelling, five that required corneal transplants. FDA's Eydelman said the company proposed candidate restrictions to minimize that risk, and will study how an additional 770 recipients fare after sales begin.

VisionCare, of Saratoga, Calif., is seeking Medicare coverage for the surgery and rehab costs, a package that it calls CentraSight. The company wouldn't estimate total costs but said the device itself costs $15,000.