Archive for the ‘Interesting Facts’ Category

• Quasars are the most intense sources of light in the Universe. Although no bigger than the Solar System, they glow with the brightness of 100 galaxies.
• Quasars are the most distant known objects in the Universe. Even the nearest is billions of light-years away.
• The most distant quasar is on the very edges of the known Universe, 12 billion light-years away.
• Some quasars are so far away that we see them as they were when the Universe was still in its infancy — 20 percent of its current age.
• Quasar is short for Quasi-Stellar (star-like) Radio Object. This comes from the fact that the first quasars were detected by the strong radio signals they give out and also because quasars are so small and bright that at first people thought they looked like stars.
• Only one of the 200 quasars now known actually beams out radio signals, so the term Quasi-Stellar Radio Object is in fact misleading!
• The brightest quasar is 3C 273, two billion light-years away.
• Quasars are at the heart of galaxies called ‘active galaxies’.
• Quasars may get their energy from a black hole at their core, which draws in matter
• The black hole in a quasar may pull in matter ferociously.
• The Hubble space telescope’s clear view of space has given the best-ever with the same mass as 100 million Suns.

Originally posted 2010-03-16 18:18:52. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• When it is daylight on the half of the Earth facing towards the Sun, it is night on the half of the Earth facing away from it. As the Earth rotates, so the day and night halves shift gradually around the world.
• The Earth turns eastwards — this means that the Sun comes up in the east as our part of the world spins round to face it.
• As the Earth turns, the stars come back to the same place in the night sky every 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.09 seconds. This is called a sidereal day (star day).
• It takes 24 hours for the Sun to come back to the same place in the daytime sky. This is the solar day, and it is slightly longer than the star day because the Earth moves one degree further round the Sun each day.
• On the other planets, the length of day and night varies according to how fast each planet rotates.
• One day on Mercury lasts 59 Earth days, because Mercury takes almost two months to spin around.
• A day on Jupiter lasts less than 10 hours because Jupiter spins so fast.
• A day on Mars is 24.6 hours — much the same as ours.
• A day on the Moon lasts one Earth month.

Originally posted 2010-03-14 11:40:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Velocity is speed in a particular direction.
• Uniform velocity is when the velocity stays the same. It can be worked out simply by dividing the distance traveled (d) by the time (t): v = d/t.
• Acceleration is a change in velocity.
• Positive acceleration is getting faster; negative acceleration is getting slower.
• Acceleration is given in meters per second per second, or m/s 2. This means that a velocity gets faster by so many meters per second in each consecutive second.
• Rifle bullet accelerates down the barrel at 3000 m/s2. A fast car accelerates at 6 m/s2.
• When an object falls, the Earth’s gravity makes it accelerate at 9.81 m/s2. This is called g.
• Acceleration is often described in gs.
• In a rocket taking off at 1g, the acceleration has little effect. But at 3 g, it is impossible to move your arms and legs; at 4.5 g you would black out in five seconds.
• A high-speed lift goes up at 0.2 g. An airplane takes off at 0.5 g. A car brakes at up to 0.7 g. In a crash, you may be able to survive a momentary deceleration of up to 100 g, but the effects are likely to be severe.

Originally posted 2010-03-17 19:35:53. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Crystals are particular kinds of solids that are made from a regular arrangement, or lattice, of atoms. Most rocks and metals are crystals, so are snowflakes and salt.
• Most crystals have regular, geometrical shapes with smooth faces and sharp corners.
• Most crystals grow in dense masses, as in metals. Some crystals grow separately, like grains of sugar.
• Some crystals are shiny and clear to look at. Crystals got their name from the chunks of quartz that the ancient Greeks called krystallos. They believed the chunks were unmeltable ice.
• Crystals form by a process called crystallization. As liquid evaporates or molten solids cool, the chemicals dissolved in them solidify.
• Crystals grow gradually as more and more atoms attach themselves to the lattice, just as icicles grow as water freezes onto them.
• The smallest crystals are microscopically small. Occasionally crystals of a mineral such as beryl may grow to the size of telegraph poles.
• A liquid crystal is a crystal that can flow like a liquid but has a regular pattern of atoms.
• A liquid crystal may change color or go dark when the alignment of its atoms is disrupted by electricity or heat. Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) use a tiny electric current to make crystals affect light.
• X-ray crystallography uses x-rays to study the structure of atoms in a crystal. This is how we know the structure of many important life substances such as DNA.

Originally posted 2010-03-14 11:29:55. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• The liver is a large organ situated to the right of the stomach.
• The liver is your body’s chemical processing center.
• The liver is your body’s biggest internal organ, and the word hepatic means ‘to do with the liver.
• The liver’s prime task is handling all the Gall bladders nutrients and substances digested from the food you eat and sending them out to your body cells when they are needed.
• The liver turns carbohydrates into glucose, the main energy-giving chemical for body cells.
• The liver keeps the levels of glucose in the blood steady. It does this by releasing more when levels drop, and by storing it as glycogen, a type of starch, when levels rise.
• The liver packs off excess food energy to be stored as fat around the body.
• The liver filters harmful substances such as alcohol and food additives to keep the body safe.
• The liver breaks down proteins and stores vitamins and minerals.
• The liver produces bile, the yellowish or greenish bitter liquid that helps dissolve fat as food is digested in the intestines.
• The liver clears the blood of old red cells and harmful substances such as alcohol, and makes new plasma (see blood).
• The liver’s chemical processing units, called lobules, take in unprocessed blood from the outside and dispatch it through a collecting vein.

Originally posted 2010-03-14 18:36:44. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• There are two kinds of marsh: freshwater marshes and saltwater marshes.
• Freshwater marshes occur in low-lying ground alongside rivers and lakes where the water level is always near the soil surface.
• Freshwater marshes are dominated by plants such as rushes, reeds and sedges.
• Sedges are like grass but have solid triangular stems. They grow in damp places near the water’s edge.
• Rushes have long cylindrical leaves and grow in tussocks in damp places along the bank.
• Reeds are tall grasses with round stems, flat leaves and purplish flowers. They grow in dense beds in open water.
• Free-floating plants like duckweed and frogbit are common in marshes. In rivers they’d be washed away.
• Water horsetails are relics of plants that dominated the vast swamps of the Carboniferous Period 300 million years ago.
• Saltwater marshes are flooded twice daily by salty seawater. Cordgrasses and salt-meadow grass are common. Reeds and rushes grow where it is least salty.
• Where mud is firm, glasswort and seablite take root. Further from the water sea aster and purslane grow. On high banks, sea lavender, sea plantain and thrift bloom.

Originally posted 2010-03-15 18:17:25. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Also called air plants, Epiphyte plants are those that do not root in the soil but grow on other plants (mainly trees). Depending on their habitat, they may also grow on buildings and cables or wire. They depend on the things they grow on for support but epiphytes are not parasitic since they do not rely on them for nourishment. Since they do not grow in the soil they rely on the rain and air around them for nutrients, on some occasions they may even extract nutrients from debris that is accumulated around them.

Moisture is taken from the rain, air and sometimes the excess moisture (found mainly in pockets) on the plant they are growing on. However, epiphytes do make their own food in the normal way most plants do; using photosynthesis which is a process in which sunlight is used to make food and produce oxygen.

All major plant groups have epiphyte plants. The Temperate Zone houses many algae, lichens, liverworts and mosses while cacti, orchids, ferns and bromeliads like Spanish moss thrive in the Tropics. There is an estimated 30,000 species of epiphytic plants worldwide and more than half supposedly live in the rainforest. Most grow at very high altitudes however, epiphytic fungi, lichens, ferns, mosses and bacteria are exceptions to the rule. So too are aquatic algae like seaweed since they grow in the water and not in the air.

Epiphytes are highly adaptive, growing parts necessary and situating themselves in environments most susceptible to growth regardless of their habitat. Some will grow roots to help them attach to their hosts as well as structures that specialize in the collection and storage of moisture like scales and cups. And some, for example in Europe along the coastal fringes of the West may grow in the soil suspended in areas on trees. Epiphytic grass, small trees and small bushes are known to do this on rare occasions.

Epiphytes that grow in canopies (clusters of mature tree tops or crowns) benefit greatly from the excess sunlight and gain protection from many herbivores. Those in aquatic habitats form an important part of the ecosystem, serving as homes to anthropods, frogs and microorganisms that also serve as food for larger life forms.

The main problem with epiphytic plants is that they can be thick enough to overcrowd the plants they grow on hence causing damage. They have the ability to evade and take over the spaces of other trees. This is done mainly by large trees that start in canopies then gradually grow roots that travel down the trunks of the hosts until they overpower and replace the host. This process can take decades and once epiphytes become “free standing” trees they are classified as ‘hemiepiphytes’. New Zealand’s Northern rātā and the strangler fig are examples.

They also have the ability to remove the tree bark of the host (which is a protective structure) while growing roots. Since they grow in canopies, they can also lead to starvation of the host by blocking sunlight from its leaves prohibiting or hampering photosynthesis. Epiphytes due to their location can attract insects that can damage the host trees as well as increase the tree’s resistance to wind which can be detrimental in windy areas.

Despite these however, many species have adapted to their environment well enough to live symbiotically with their hosts causing no harm.

• The September 11, 2001 attacks, coordinated by 19 terrorists, were all suicide attacks. Each of the terrorists attempted to kill themselves in attempt to kill others.
• 2,973 victims and all 19 of the terrorists died on September 11. The terrorists lead a couple of planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in NY, one plane into Pentagon in VA and yet another into a field in PA.
• These commercial planes, run by American Airlines and United Airlines, were hijacked by al-Qaeda. 246 passengers were lead to an unexpected destination, death. Passengers and flight crew attempted to take control of the fourth plane, battling with the al-Qaeda terrorists, and crashed as a result. It is said that this plane was en route to either Capitol or the White House
• Aside from 55 military personnel killed in VA, all of those who died were innocent civilians. As a result of the attacks to the World Trade Center, civilians from more than 90 countries died.
• 658, investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., employees were lost, significantly higher than the 335 (2nd highest, for a single employer) death toll of Marsh Inc.
• The low death toll of less than 3,000 is something to be thankful for. Had al-Qaeda not have been early risers (the first attack took place at 8.46am and the last attack at 10.03am), the death toll would have been significantly higher, al-Qaeda’s attacks would have been considered much more successful and many, many more people would have been impacted today.
• At 5.20pm on September 11, 2001, World Trade Center building number 7 also collapsed. A plane crash, however, did not cause this collapse.

Related Reading to 9/11 Facts

• 9/11 Facts

• Humans are one of very few land mammals to have almost bare skin. But even humans have soft, downy hair all over, with thicker hair in places.
• Lanugo is the very fine hair babies are covered in when they are inside the womb, from the fourth month of pregnancy onwards.
• Vellus hair is fine, downy hair that grows all over your body until you reach puberty.
• Terminal hair is the coarser hair on your head, as well as the hair that grows on men’s chins and around an adult’s genitals.
• The color of your hair depends on how much there are of pigments called melanin and carotene in the hairs.
• Hair is red or auburn if it contains carotene.
• Black, brown and blonde hair get its color from black melanin.
• Each hair is rooted in a pit called the hair follicle. The hair is held in place by its club-shaped tip, the bulb.
• Hair grows as cells fill with a material called keratin and die, and pile up inside the follicle.
• The average person has 120,000 head hairs and each grows about 3 millimeters per week.

• A zebra’s stripes are as individual as human fingerprints – no two zebras are exactly the same.
• The quagga was a South African zebra that only had stripes on the front part of its body.
• The home range of Grevy’s zebra, which roams desert and savannah terrains in northeastern Kenya, sometimes exceeds 10,000 sq km.
• The zebra can be a formidable foe, driving off lions, and even killing humans lo defend its foals.
• Grevy’s zebra is a large species with narrowly spaced stripes and very large, mule-like ears.
• A plains zebra herd’s stallion will challenge any potential rival coming within 100 m of his herd.
• The quagga once existed in very large herds, but became extinct through overhunting in the 1870s.
• Mountain zebras follow ancient trails to mountain springs and pools in the dry season, and dig for subsurface water in stream beds.
• Chapman’s zebra has shadow stripes – light, greyish stripes that alternate with the dark main stripes.