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Some fish celebrate Halloween everyday
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While we're talking about Halloween, this is the Atlantic wolffish ( Anarhichas lupus), very appropriately and otherwise known as the ‘devil fish’. The hefty fish grows up to 1.5 metres long and over 20kg, and they’re named for those unmistakable fangs. If they're not scary enough, their throats are also lined with a spattering of small, serrated teeth.
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4615 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Albino alligator
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Bino, an albino alligator that lives at the Sao Paulo Aquarium in Brazil. Read more on albinism.
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5883 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Jumping spiders
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Meet the green jumping spider ( Mopsus mormon), Australia’s largest—and perhaps cutest—jumping arachnid. These spiders hunt in the day time, moving fast to attack their prey, and camouflaging against green leaves. If you see one, leave it alone. Although their bite won’t kill you, it’s extremely painful.
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5523 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Ever wonder why buttered popcorn smells so good?
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The binturong, or bearcat, is a rare species found in Southeast Asia. The females are usually 20% larger than the males, and they communicate amongst themselves using scent glands located on either side of the anus. These scent glands emit an odour that smells exactly like buttered popcorn.
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8227 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Shores of Lake General Carrera
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These are the Cuevas de Mármol, or Marble Caves, found on the shores of Lake General Carrera - a remote glacial lake surrounded by the Andes mountain range and spanning the Chile-Argentina border. Formed over 6,200 years as countless waves crashed against a huge peninsula of calcium carbonate, that distinct, swirling pattern reflects the lake's bright blue colours, which can change in intensity and hue depending on the time of year.
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8162 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Monkeys can purr too!
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This is the Caqueta titi monkey, and its babies purr just like cats when they're happy. It is one of more than 400 new species of animals and plants that have been discovered in the past four years in the Amazon rainforest, along with a vegetarian piranha and a flame-patterned lizard.
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6515 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Half male, half female
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This butterfly is half female, half male. It's suffering from bilateral gynandromorphism, which is a rare genetic disorder that afflicts insects, arachnids, crustaceans and birds, and it could be caused when two sperm enter the egg. Humans are not at risk. ...
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5661 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Are street lamps a thing of the past?
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Hamish Scott from the UK has invented the Starpath, which is a special luminescent coating for roads and paths. The multi-layered, organic material collects and stores energy from light during the day and releases it as a blueish glow at night that can last for 16 hours. The technology is now being trialled at Christ's Pieces Park in Cambridge, and if successful, could slash electricity bills, plus it's 100% recyclable.
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5485 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Hugging, not just a human thing
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Apes manage their emotions much in the same way as humans do. Socially and emotionally competent young bonobos recover quickly from upsetting experiences and are more likely to comfort other young apes, a new study has shown.
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4812 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Bendable phone?
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Imagine dropping your phone and seeing it bounce rather than break. Using microscale plates of oxide materials that slide over each other, like geological plates, Australian researchers are a step closer to creating fully functional flexible electronic devices.
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5148 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Getting paid to sleep
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These are the ‘pillownauts,’ and they just got out of bed for the first time in 21 days. The paid volunteers for the European Space Agency laid with their feet up in a medical facility while scientists poked and prodded them to try to understand the effects of spaceflight on astronauts’ bodies. One of the subjects who took part in this investigation said: “The first days of each session were the worst. The body needs to adapt and I had migraines and backaches."
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7904 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Proof that money does grow on trees
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Well, okay GOLD. Apparently, gold grows on eucalyptus trees. Researchers discovered that the trees are acting as a hydraulic pump, extracting gold from the soil and moving it to their leaves and branches. The ‘nuggets’ are about one-fifth the diameter of human hair, but the leaves may be used in combination with other tools to develop better exploration techniques.
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7654 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Pixelated snake
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This is the Green vine snake ( Ahaetulla nasuta), a slender tree snake found in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The snake is mildly venomous, and its bite causes swelling and pain. They feed on frogs and lizards. There is a widespread myth in parts of southern India that the species uses its pointed head to blind its human victims!
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10020 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Walking leaves
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This stunning creature is the Amazonian leaf-footed bug ( Diactor bilenatus), a species that can be found throughout South American, in parts of Central America and on some Caribbean Islands. Although they look beautiful, when threatened the insect releases a bitter, unpleasant odour to scare of potential predators.
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7463 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Which animal has the densest fur, try to guess
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With up to one million hairs per square inch of its body, the sea otter has the densest fur in the animal kingdom. (To put this in perspective, you’ve probably only got 100,000 hairs or less on your whole head!) Together with a huge lung capacity, this makes these water-loving creatures extremely buoyant. The pups are born so buoyant, they're incapable of diving underwater, and are often left bobbing on the surface in a sea kelp bed while their mothers hunt for food nearby.
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10150 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Prickly crab
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This is the porcupine crab ( Neolithodes grimaldii), found in the deep sea bed along the continental slopes of the Atlantic Ocean. A member of the king crab family, its carapace, or body, can stretch up to 18 cm long, and it can weigh over 2 kg. But that's nothing compared to the blue king crab ( Paralithodes platypus) from Alaska, which weighs a whopping 8 kg. ...
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9160 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Who knew chili peppers were good for you
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Exposure to cold and eating chili peppers both appear to increase the activity of brown fat cells, which burn energy, rather than store it as typical "white" fat cells do, a study has found.
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6918 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
How a tree protects itself from the rain
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These are hundreds of umbrella mushrooms growing on tree bark. Mushrooms that take over the tree trunk like this are usually spread by wind-blown spores and generally infect older or injured trees.
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5548 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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3 |
7788 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Sea otters hold each others paws when they sleep
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Since sea otters sleep at sea, floating around like in the video, holding hands like that keeps the group together, so they don't drift apart in the night. Because of this, the otters feel more comfortable holding hands while asleep than drifting alone. Therefore, it serves both social and practical purpose.
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3860 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
A dancing spider
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Meet the peacock spider, it has the best dance moves you've ever seen.
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1 |
3922 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
How to withstand a piranha attack
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The arapaima ( Arapaima gigas) is one of the biggest freshwater fish on the planet and has evolved a multi-layer defence against the piranha. Its scales have an ultra-tough outer shell, which promotes tooth fracture at the point of penetration. The scales are also a corrugated shape, which deflect pressure to overlapping layers of collagen underneath.
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5064 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
It's raining diamonds!
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It’s raining diamonds in Jupiter and Saturn. Dr. Kevin Bates from the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that lightning storms in these two planets turn methane into soot. As it falls, soot hardens into chunks of graphite and then diamonds. Bates speculates that about 1,000 tonnes of diamonds are produced on Saturn every year.
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4952 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Oreo cookies are more addictive than cocaine
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Researchers have found that Oreos are as addictive as cocaine, at least for lab rats. According to the new study, eating the black and white cookies activated more neurons in the rat brain’s pleasure centre than drugs such as cocaine.
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3428 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
World's deadliest toxin
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The deadliest substance known to man is a recently discovered type of botulinum toxin ( botox). The scientists who discovered it haven’t found an antitoxin yet, so they have decided not to publish the gene sequence due to security concerns. The toxin comes from the bacterium Clostridium botulinum and blocks the chemical signals that makes nerves work, causing botulism and death by paralysis. The image shown above is the protein structure of botulinum toxin.
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3124 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Two-headed snake
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This two headed albino milk snake was born two years ago in Florida. The condition is known as Polycephaly and occurs when monozygotic twins fail to separate completely. Most organisms with this condition will not live for long, but occasionally you will get cases like this one, where the snake(s?) seem healthy enough and can live for years. The heads act independently of one another, and will fight over food given the opportunity. ...
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4319 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Imagine building the tallest tower
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Engineers led by sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson have unveiled plans for the tallest building in the world. Tall Tower would be 24 times the height of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, considered the tallest building in the world, and would double the maximum heights for commercial airspace, as the designers believe the tower could also be used to launch rockets into space. A building this high poses many structural issues, and we don’t know if it will ever be built.
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3053 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
A new species of giant fish as been discovered
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The new species is member of the arapaima genus, which contains some of the world’s biggest freshwater fish that breathe air and weigh up to 200kg. Found in the central Amazon of Brazil, the new fish has been named Arapaima leptosoma and is the first new species of arapaima described since 1847.
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3970 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Someone is selling air on Ebay
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Could someone talk some sense into the five people that have bid on this item, please? According to the description, this is one litre of bottled air from the area affected by the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
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5171 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
A fascinating looking whale
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This is Migaloo, the albino white humpback whale. His name is derived from an Aboriginal word that means “white fella.” Migaloo is a favorite for whale watching enthusiasts. He is believed to be the only documented white humpback whale in the world. He was discovered in 1991 and quickly became popular with tourists and locals alike. Since then, sightings have been rare. He migrates from Antarctica to Australia on a yearly basis, and some years he slips by undetected. Most of these photos were taken in 2012 on Migaloo’s return to Antarctica. ...
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5119 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Designer crab
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This is Trapezia rufopunctata, a small and brightly coloured species of crab native to the lagoons and coastal reefs of the Maldives, Polynesia and the Indo-Pacific region. Also known as a guard crab, it lives symbiotically with corals, feeding on their discarded tissue and mucus while defending them from predators. ...
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4706 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Pointing is a sign that is understood by many animals
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Elephants really do get the point. New research has revealed that African elephants can spontaneously understand the intent of human pointing, and can use it as a cue to find food. While humans understand pointing from a very early age, only a few animals, such as dogs and horses, have the same ability, and it's thought that an elephant's understanding of pointing relates to the way they use their trunks to make gestures to each other in the wild.
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4760 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Using millipedes to repel mosquitoes
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Researchers studying a group of wedge-capped capuchin monkeys that live in tropical forests of central Venezuela have discovered that the monkeys protect themselves against the annual merciless onslaught of mosquitoes exactly as humans do: by rubbing themselves with mosquito repellent. But while humans may reach desperately for spritzers or bottles or laughably overhyped ''protective'' skin-so-softeners, the capuchins have learned to poke around in tree bark or termite mounds to extract a wriggling specimen of Orthoporus dorsovittatus, a millipede rich with powerful defensive chemicals called benzoquinones. The capuchin monkey will then proceed to anoint itself head to foot with the repellent secretions by massaging the four-inch-long millipe ...
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4916 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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3478 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
The happiest spider alive
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This is the happy face spider, a spider in the family Theridiidae. Their "smile" keeps predators away.
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3297 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Massive flying squirrel
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Named Biswamoyopterus laoensis, with a suggested common name of the Laotian giant flying squirrel. It weighs around 1.8 kg and measures about 42 inches (1.08 m) in total length – the body is about 18 inches (0.46 m) long and the tail is 24 inches (0.62 m) long.
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2530 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Imagine staying in flight for six months straight
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New data shows alpine swift can spend up to 200 days in the air. It is a mystery how the birds are able to physiologically accomplish this feat. While their diet is relatively straightforward, they feed on airborne insects, how they rest in midair is not known.
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3621 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Baby kiwi
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This gorgeous Kiwi chick was born a few days ago in Auckland Zoo and a zookeeper filmed how it broke its egg and entered the world. Kiwi birds are shy, flightless birds endemic to New Zealand. The Kiwi bird population has dwindled in the past few decades, but different zoos and wildlife sanctuaries have developed conservations programs that will help save the species.
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5850 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Ever seen white bats before?
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Introducing the Honduran white bat, a tiny bat (reaches up to 4.7 cm in length) found in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama that has superb construction skills. These bats build tents from waxy leaves, creating a waterproof shelter that also helps them camouflage from predators.
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5912 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Massive drain plug
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The Monticello Dam holds back Lake Berryessa in Napa County, California, USA. The morning glory spillway associated with the dam is the largest in the world; it is a funnel-shaped outlet that allows water to bypass the Monticello Dam when it reaches capacity (1370 m³/s). The Glory Hole is located about 61m from the dam; the distance from the funnel to the exit point - which is situated in the south side of the canyon - is about 213m. The outside diameter is 22m, slowly narrowing to 8.5m at the exit. Water spills over the lip of the Glory Hole when the lake reaches 1,976,037,908 cubic metres (1,602,000 acre-feet). The spillway is designed to handle a maximum of 1,370,319 litres of water per second (362,000 gallons of water per second); this ha ...
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6482 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
The gateway to hell
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Otherwise known as the Door to Hell and the Darvaza gas crater, the crater is found in Turkmenistan and is 60 metres wide and 20 metres deep. The hole was created when a Soviet drilling rig accidentally tapped into a massive underground natural gas cavern, causing the ground to collapse and the drilling rig to fall in. To prevent poisonous fumes from escaping into the atmosphere, the Soviet geologists decided to set the pit on fire, hoping the fire would use up its fuel in a few days.
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6476 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
It's no wonder this species was so hard to find
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Biologists from James Cook University have discovered a new species of leaf-tailed gecko in Australia. The lizard is highly camouflaged against the granite boulders it lives on and grows to around 12 cm. It's been named the Cape Melville leaf-tailed gecko ( Saltaurius eximius) after the region in northern Queensland where it was found.
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6469 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Aurora borealis
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This picture of a green and red aurora was taken on September 26, 2013, from the International Space Station. The colours of the aurora borealis depend on which atoms the solar storm excites. Green auroras appear when charged particles from the solar wind crash with oxygen atoms in Earth’s atmosphere and produce green photons; red auroras occur when the particles collide with nitrogen atoms or when there are lower-energy oxygen collisions, producing red photons.
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2615 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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2636 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
This moth is a work of art
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This is the Giant Leopard Moth, a strictly nocturnal species native to parts of North America and Mexico. These moths start life as an incredibly black and bristly caterpillar, and once they grow into adulthood, they never eat, and instead focus on mating and passing their genes onto several clutches of eggs. ...
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3553 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
One extremely intelligent beak -- I mean bird
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This is the emerald toucanet, and it can be found camouflaging very nicely in the mountainous forests of Mexico, Central America, Venezuela and along the Andes. These beautiful birds are extremely intelligent - when reared by hand in captivity, they can learn tricks as fast as cockatoos.
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3492 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Largest hot spring in North America
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This is the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park - the largest hot spring in North America and the third largest in the world. The incredible colours are produced by pigmented bacteria that grow in microbial mats around the edges of the mineral-rich water. In summer, the mats are usually orange and red, and in winter they're are usually dark green.
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3708 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
What happens when all the oil (petroleum) is used up?
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Peter Diamandis makes a case for optimism -- that we'll invent, innovate and create ways to solve the challenges that loom over us. "I'm not saying we don't have our set of problems; we surely do. But ultimately, we knock them down."
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5687 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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5069 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
World's largest seed
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The coco-de-mer palm tree ( Lodoicea maldivica) is endemic to the Seychelles. Its seeds are the largest and heaviest of any plant in the world, and have been highly prized over the centuries, which has almost driven the palm tree to extinction.
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5715 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
A fascinating real-life optical illusion
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A fascinating optical illusion can be found at the southwestern tip of Mauritius Island. If seen from above, this part of the island seems to be melting into the ocean, forming a spectacular underwater waterfall. We owe this to a runoff of sand and silt deposits (the light-coloured portion of the water) and the downward pull of the receding waves.
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5923 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Think you're having a bad hair day, check this out
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Uncombable hair syndrome, also known as Pili trianguli et canaliculi, is a rare structural anomaly of the hair with a variable degree of effect. It was first reported in the early 20 th century and was described in the 1970s. It becomes apparent from as little as 3 months to up to 12 years. The hair is normal in quantity and is usually silvery-blond or straw-colored. It is disorderly, it stands out from the scalp, and cannot be combed flat. The underlying structural anomaly is longitudinal grooving of the hair shaft, which appears triangular in cross section. There usually is no family history, though the characteristic hair shaft anomaly can be demonstrated in asymptomatic family members by scanning electron microscopy. To be noticeable, 50% ...
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4523 |
duddy |
10 years ago |