Showing posts with label Amazing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amazing. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 November 2013
Saturday, 23 November 2013
Amazing Facts About Cats!
2. There are many types of cats, and all look very different, and have very different personalities.
3. Most cats usually weigh between 5.5 -16 pounds, but some can weigh up to 25 pounds!
4. Cats are healthiest and safest when kept indoors. Cats who live inside can live up to 20 years longer than cats who go outside.
5. Sadly, there are more cats than there are homes for them. Adopting a cat from a shelter instead of buying one from a pet store or breeder gives a needy cat a loving home.
6. More than 100,000 cats are killed each year just for dissection in biology classrooms across the country. Many of the cats killed for dissection were once someone’s pets.There are so many great things you can do to learn about cats instead of dissecting them.
7. Keep your cat(s) indoors. She’ll be safer and happier.
8. Make sure that your cat is spayed or neutered.
9. Cats have a natural dislike of sweet tasting foods because they are so well evolved as carnivores that they cannot digest sugars very well, they convert fats instead.
10. Thanks to their very powerful hind legs and flexible spine, cats are noted for their ability to leap long distances, often as much as six times their entire length.
11. Cats are able to “always” land on their feet because they have a very flexible spine, enabling them to orient their bodies aided by a balancing organ in their inner ears.
12. The whiskers of a cat are devices for indirectly feeling the immediate environment. When something touches a whisker it is sensed by special cells surrounding its root.
13. Cats have tongues covered in sharp hair-like points called papillae. They are used to Scrape blood and flesh from bones, and for raking their fin while cleaning themselves.
14. Purring is most obviously used to express pleasure, but Cats are known to purr when they are ill or injured, suggesting that it comforts them during times of stress.
15. Cats’ fur has two layers. There is a layer of guard hairs which keep the cat clean, as well as a dense underfur to insulate against hot or cold conditions.
16. The reason why cats rub their faces and tails against objects, including pet owners, is the fact that they are leaving traces of their own scent as territorial markers.
17. Cats have large pupils to let as much light in as possible at night A pet cat’s eyes are only slightly smaller than ours, yet it can see six times better than a human in the dark.
18. Keeping cool can be a real problem for cats. They can only sweat from their paws because oftheir dense filr, so they will lie in shade and pant to avoid overheating.
19. Cats have short rnuzzles because they rely more heavily on their senses of vision and hearing while hunting, rather than their sense of smell.
20. The pads of a Cat’s paws are so sensitive to temperature that they quickly locate warm spots to sit.
21. The traditional way for diagnosing illness in a cat, is to check its nose. It is cold and noticeably wet, then it may have a chill, cold, or even eat flu.
22. The belly of a cat is its most vulnerable area. By rolling over and exposing its belly, a cat is therefore displaying a. great deal of trust towards a person.
Saturday, 9 November 2013
AMAZING FACTS ABOUT COFFEE
2. The coffee plant is an evergreen, which only grows commercially within the tropics.
3. Of some sixty species of coffee the types Arabica (high grown quality coffee) and Robusta (hardy, low-grade coffee) are the most extensively cultivated.
4. Coffee is second only to oil in importance and value in terms of world traded commodities.
5. For ease of picking the coffee plant is usually grown as a 5 to 6 foot shrub and starts to product fruit at three to four years. If left unpruned the trees can grow as high as 30 feet.
6. The coffee tree will bear fruit for approximately twenty-five years.
7. The coffee plant produces blossom, unripe and ripe cherries all at the same time, making hand picking the most practical form or harvesting.
8. A healthy tree can produce from between four to six pounds (2-3Kgs) of fruit per year, the green beans within the fruit weighing one to one and a half lbs (500-750g).
9. Depending on the darkness of the roast, between 12% and 25% of weight is lost in the roasting process.
10. Coffee beans grow in two distinct halves within the cherry with their two flat faces towards each other. When one half does not grow the remaining bean forms into a rounded pea shape hence the name “Peaberry”.
11. The word coffee derives from the old Arabic/Turkish words gahwah, Kahwa and Kahveh which were originally the names for wine and excitement.
12. Coffee producing countries receive annually in excess of $10 US Billion for coffee sold on the world market.
14. For third world countries such as Colombia and El Salvador in Central America and Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Ethiopia in Africa, coffee provides the main source of foreign exchange.
15. In the U.S.A alone in excess of 400 million cups of coffee are drunk daily.
16. It is thought that originally coffee beans were chewed and that the leaves, the cherry husks or bark from the tree were used to make a brew before someone thought of roasting and grinding the coffee beans.
17. Legend suggests that a Yemeni goat herder by the name of Kaldi, was the first person to discover the positive effects of coffee when he observed the creatures in his charge becoming very lively after eating the leaves and berries on a coffee bush. Having boiled up a concoction of coffee beans he found he could stay awake all night and attend his herd.
18. Mocha coffee takes its name from the Yemeni port of Mocha, which was the main port from which coffee was shipped until the early nineteenth century when it was closed by a sandbar.
19. In sixteenth century Constantinople, the “crime” of drinking coffee was cudgelling for the first offence and if caught again, being sewn into a leather sack and thrown in the Bosphorus.
20. The Venetians first brought coffee to Europe at around the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century.
21. The first coffee house in England was opened by a Lebanese by the name of Jacob at the Angel Inn, Oxford in 1650. A plaque opposite Queens College records the fact.
22. In 1733, J.S. Bach wrote the “Coffee Cantata” included are the words “Oh how true that coffee bliss is, sweeter than a thousand kisses”.
23. The largest insurance market in the world “Lloyds of London” originated in a 17th Century coffee house run by Edward Lloyd.
24. In the 17th and 18th centuries the patrons of London coffee houses would put money into a box marked T.I.P. which stood for “to insure promptness” hence the modern day word, tip, meaning a gratuity.
25. In the first half of the 18th century a Frenchman named De Clieu sailed with coffee seedlings to Martinique to establish the French coffee industry. On the voyage most of the seedlings died as fresh water became scarce and in order to save the last remaining seedling de Clieu shared with it his daily water ration. From this one seedling nearly twenty thousand trees existed within fifty years.
26. In order to control the production of coffee, the French would not allow any seeds or seedlings to leave their colonies where coffee was grown. However in around the 1720’s a Brazilian diplomat used his charms on the wife of the French Governor of Guiana who smuggled him some coffee seeds which is how coffee came to Brazil and where up to a third of the world’s coffee is now grown.
27. The Spanish roast coffee with sugar, which caramelises on the beans creating a dark, shiny appearance, such coffees are known as Torrefacto.
28. It is said that Voltaire, who drank copious quantities of coffee, when told by his physician that coffee was a slow poison replied that he knew it was a slow poison, it had been poisoning him for more than seventy years.
29. Excessive coffee drinking is sometimes said to be bad for health however Scandinavians who have the highest coffee consumption per capita in the world are also among those with the highest life expectancy.
30. In some parts of the world coffee trees are grown under the shade of other trees such as banana trees, not only do the coffee trees benefit from the shade, but the grower gets the additional advantage of a secondary crop.
31. In the U.S.A and most of Europe between eighty to ninety per cent of all coffees drunk are fresh ground, the balance being instant coffee, in the U.K nearly ninety per cent drunk is instant coffee.
32. Raw coffee beans are usually shipped in 60kg to 70kg hessian sacks although some coffees are now shipped loose in 22 tonne nett containers.
34. Arabica coffee trees are easily damaged by frost, too much sun, insects and drought but they need to grow on hillsides for adequate drainage, Robusta coffees are much hardier and need less husbandry.
35. The number of coffee trees grown per hectare can vary from 2000 to 100,000.
Saturday, 2 November 2013
Amazing Facts About Human Body
2. You are about a half inch taller in the morning than you are before you go to bed!
3. You are born with 300 bones, but by the time you reach adulthood you have only 206!
4. The strongest muscle in your body is your tongue!
5. The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone!
6. About half of the bones in your body are in your hands and feet!
7. The width of your arm span stretched out is about the length of your whole body!
8. Your "funny bone" isn't a bone at all. It's a nerve, called the ulnar nerve, which runs down the inside of your elbow.
9. Humans have tails, too. It's at the end of the back bone, called the coccyx!
10. The smallest bone in your body is the stapes, which is located deep inside your ear!
11. The longest bone in your body is the femur, or thighbone. It makes up almost one quarter of your height!
12. The smallest muscle in your body is the stapedius, deep inside the ear!
13. The biggest muscle in your body is the gluteus maximus, in your but ock. It helps pull the leg backwards for walking, running, and climbing steps!
14. Most people have 12 sets of ribs, but 1 out of every 20 people is born with at least one extra rib!
15. Your body has 650 muscles. They make up nearly half of your total body weight!
16. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve a razor blade!
17. Your body has about 60,000 miles of blood vessels. That's enough to stretch more than two times around the earth!
18. When you sneeze, you produce wind that travels more than 100 miles per hour!
19. During your lifetime, your mouth will make enough saliva to fill two swimming pools!
20.Your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born!
21. Your body sheds and regrows a new layer of skin every 27 days!
22. Every day, your body produces about 300 billion new cells!
23. Your body gives of enough heat in 30 minutes to boil a half gallon of water!
24. It is not possible to tickle yourself!
25. The purpose of eyebrows is to keep sweat from running into your eyes!
26. Hair is the second fastest growing tissue on the body. Bone marrow is the first!
27. Around 20% of the oxygen you breathe goes to your brain!
28. Your ears and nose continue to grow throughout your entire life!
29. During your lifetime, your kidneys will clean over 1 million gallons of blood!
30. The adult body contains 5 to 6 quarts of blood, while infants have about 1 quart of blood!
31. Your heart beats about 40 million times a year!
32. The aorta is the largest artery in the body. It's about as wide as a garden hose!
33. Your body releases about a half liter of water every day through breathing!
34. Most people blink about 25 times a minute!
35. Nerve signals to and from your brain can travel as fast as 170 miles per hour!
36. 80% of your brain is water!
37. Every day, the average person loses 60 to 100 strands of hair!
38. You have as many hairs per square inch on your body as a chimpanzee. Most are too fine to be seen!
39. Your heart creates enough pressure to squirt blood 30 feet!
40. The skin is the largest organ of the body!
41. The average person breathes about 76 millions gallons of air in their lifetime!
42. It takes about 1 minute for a red blood cell to circulate around the whole body!
43. In one day, your body sheds about 10 billion skin flakes!
44. The enamel in your teeth is the hardest substance in your body!
Amazing Bone Facts
You'd be floppy like a beanbag. Could you stand up? Forget it. Could you walk? No way. Without bones you'd be just a puddle of skin and guts on the floor.
Bones have two purposes. Some, like your backbone, provide the structure which enables you to stand erect instead of lying like a puddle on the floor. Other bones protect the delicate, and sometimes soft, insides of your body. Your skull, a series of fused bones, acts like a hard protective helmet for your brain. The bones, or vertebrae, of your spinal column surround your spinal cord, a complex bundle of nerves. Imagine what could happen to your heart and lungs without the protective armor of your rib cage!
How many bones do humans have?
When you were born you had over 300 bones. As you grew, some of these bones began to fuse together. The result? An adult has only 206 bones!
How do my bones move?
With a lot of help. You need muscles to pull on bones so that you can move. Along with muscles and joints, bones are responsible for you being able to move. Your muscles are attached to bones. When muscles contract, the bones to which they are attached act as levers and cause various body parts to move.
You also need joints which provide flexible connections between these bones. Your body has different kinds of joints. Some, such as those in your knees, work like door hinges, enabling you to move back and forth. Those in your neck enable bones to pivot so you can turn your head. Still other joints like the shoulder enable you to move your arms 360 degrees like a shower head.
Are your bones alive?
Absolutely. Bones are made of a mix of hard stuff that gives them strength and tons of living cells which help them grow and repair themselves. Like other cells in your body, the bone cells rely on blood to keep them alive. Blood brings them food and oxygen and takes away waste.
If bones weren't made of living cells, things like broken toes or arms would never mend. But don't worry, they do. That's because your bone cells are busy growing and multiplying to repair the break! How? When you break your toe, blood clots form to close up the space between the broken segments. Then your body mobilizes bone cells to deposit more of the hard stuff to bridge the break.
What's bone marrow?
Many bones are hollow. Their hollowness makes bones strong and light. It' s in the center of many bones that bone marrow makes new red and white blood cells. Red blood cells ensure that oxygen is distributed to all parts of your body and white blood cells ensure you are able to fight germs and disease. Who would have thought that bones make blood!?!
Do all critters have a backbone?
Nope. In fact, some 97% of critters on earth don' t have a backbone or spine.Remarkably enough, of those that do have a backbone, there are lots of similarities: a skull surrounding a brain, a rib cage surrounding a heart, and a jawbone or mouth opening.
Factoids
1. The human hand has 27 bones; your face has 14!
2. The longest bone in your body? Your thigh bone, the femur- it' s about 1/4 of your height. The smallest is the stirrup bone in the ear which can measure 1/10 of an inch.
3. Did you know that humans and giraffes have the same number of bones in their necks? Giraffe neck vertebrae are just much, much longer!
4. You have over 230 moveable and semi-moveable joints in your body.
5. When you lift a glass of milk and take a sip, more than 30 joints move in your fingers, wrist, arm and shoulder.
6. Joints are where bones meet.
7. Throughout life, our bones are being remolded; old bone is broken down (resorption) and new born is formed (formation).
8. During childhood and teenage years, new bone is developed faster then old bone is removed, as a result, bones grow longer and denser.
9. Maximum bone density and strength is reached around age 30.
10. Maximum bone density and strength may never be reached if there is an inadequate amount of calcium in the body.
11. Calcium is not only needed for bone growth, calcium is also needed for other things such as nerve impulses, blood clotting, and muscle contraction.
12. Osteoporosis is a disease of the bones. If maximum bone density is not reached during the bone-building years, osteoporosis is more likely to develop later in life.
13. Osteoporosis can cause bones to become fragile, weak, and prone to fracture.
14. Environmental factors of osteoporosis are: Getting enough calcium, exercising, not smoking, and avoiding excessive alcohol consumption. These factors can be controlled and can help lessen the risk osteoporosis.
15. Genetic factors such as being female, small-boned, and having a family history of osteoporosis, cannot be controlled.
16. The most effective way to build bone mass is weight bearing exercises. Weight bearing exercises are exercises that cause muscles to work against gravity. Examples are: walking, running, dancing, racquet sports, basketball, and soccer.
Sunday, 20 October 2013
Amazing Chocolate Facts
Cacao and Cocoa
Cacao is the bean that comes from the cacao tree.
Cocoa is often used to describe the refined cacao bean after it has been processed, however the words cacao and cocoa are often used interchangeably in the chocolate making industry.
It is believed that the word cocoa came about as a result of a spelling mistake by European traders.
1. Cacao trees grow beneath the shady branches of taller trees in the rainforest
2. They don’t begin to bear fruit until they are at least three to five years old
3. Cacao trees produce flowers all year round
4. Tiny flies called midges pollinate these small flowers
5. Eventually, cacao pods will sprout from the trunk and branches of the tree
6. Cacao midges have the fastest wingbeat of any creature on earth-1000 beats per second.
7. Cacao midges are so small that they fit easily on the head of a straight pin
8. A cacao pod contains 30-50 almond sized seeds known as cacao beans. One cacao pod contains enough beans to make approximately seven milk chocolate bars
The Mayans
9. Before chocolate was eaten as a sweet, it was a spicy drink. Some of the earliest known chocolate drinkers (250-900 AD) were the ancient Mayans of Central America.
10. The Mayans gathered cacao seeds from rainforest trees and planted them in household gardens. They plucked the pods, scooped out the seeds, and using a stone, they ground them into chocolate. They mixed chocolate with cornmeal, chilli peppers, honey, and water.
11. Mayan priests presented a chocolate drink at sacred altars during special religious ceremonies. When rich Mayans served chocolate they used lavishly decorated cups made by specially trained artists.
The Aztecs
12. The ancient Aztecs got their taste for chocolate from their Mayan neighbours. From 1200 cacao played a key role in the vast trade empire of the Aztec people. Cacao wouldn’t grow on Aztec land, so Aztec traders travelled to Mayan country to buy the precious seeds.
13. Cacao seeds were used as money when shopping at the market for food, clothes, and even kitchen tools and utensils. Some dishonest merchants made counterfeit cacao seeds too!
14. Chocolate was a special drink reserved only for wealthy Aztecs or kings. King Montezuma is reported to have drunk 50 goblets of chocolate a day.
15. The Aztecs presented offerings of cacao to their god Quetzalcoatl, who is often depicted as a feathered serpent.
The Spanish
16. In 1521, the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés led an army to conquer the Aztec empire. The Spanish victors carried many treasures back home with them, including cacao seeds and the Aztec recipe for the drink. Within 100 years the popularity of hot chocolate spread to the rest of Europe.
17. The Spanish invented a wooden stirring stick called a molinillo to whip their chocolate into a froth. They also added sugar to sweeten the bitter taste.
18. Like the Aztecs, Europeans created special serving dishes for drinking chocolate. In fact saucers were invented specifically to keep chocolate from spilling on fine clothes.
19. Chocolate houses became popular places in 17th century Europe to socialise and drink chocolate. Wealthy people drank chocolate for breakfast. It was considered the height of good breeding to lie in bed and leisurely sip a cup of hot cocoa.
A Bar of Chocolate
20. By the 1800s new processes made it possible to create solid bars of chocolate for eating, not just liquid chocolate for drinking. New inventions, machines, and mass production made chocolate affordable and not just a luxury for the rich.
21. The steam driven chocolate mill, invented in 1732, made it easier and faster to grind cacao seeds and cheaply produce large amounts of chocolate. In 1828 Dutchman Coenraad Johannes van Houten invented the chocolate press. Still used today, this machine squeezes out cocoa butter and makes it possible to produce solid chocolate as well as cocoa powder.
22. From Ghana, then known as the Gold Coast, cocoa beans were dispensed to other countries including Nigeria. From 1911-1976 Ghana was the world's leading coco producer supplying chocolate for most of the growing European market.
23. Ghanaian cocoa growers pooled resources to set up Kuapa Kokoo, a farmers’ cooperative. Kuapa Kokoo trades its own cocoa in order to get a better price on the market for cocoa sold and to improve the farmers’ standard of living.
24. At a meeting in 1997 the farmers decided to create a chocolate bar of their own. With the support of Twin Trading, Comic Relief, the Body Shop and others, the farmers set up Day Chocolate, which later became known as Divine Chocolate.
25. Kuapa Kokoo’s motto is ‘pa pa paa’ which means ‘the best of the best’. You get the best of the best chocolate and the cocoa farmers get a fair and secure price for their crop.
26. One of York’s most famous sons is Joseph Rowntree, a Quaker remembered for his work towards improving conditions of working people and founding the famous Rowntrees chocolate and confectionary company. In 1827 he set up a grocer’s shop, which in time expanded into a chocolate factory, and now many of the sweets and chocolate bars that are much loved in Britain, like Kit Kat and Yorkie, are manufactured in the York factory.
27. York’s other great chocolate name is Terry’s. The firm began in 1767. The Terry’s name first appeared when Joseph Terry became a partner in 1823. At peak seasons over 700 people were employed at the plant to produce world-renowned delights such as Terry’s All Gold. The York factory closed in 2005 and moved its operation to Poland.
Monday, 14 October 2013
Amazing Badger Facts
Badgers belong to the Mustelidae (weasel) family of carnivores. The weasel, otter, polecat, marten, mink, fisher, grison, sable, skunk and wolverine are all close relatives. Badgers are spread over all continents other than Australasia and
Antarctica. badger (meles meles) is the most widespread over Europe and Asia, but the others include the American badger, the Hog badger of East & South Asia, the Chinese ferret badger and the Indonesian & Palawan stink badger.
Badgers are built for digging. Their den can be up to 3 metres underground and contain up to 10 metres of tunnels, with an enlarged chamber for sleeping. Badgers have long strong claws and a streamlined skull enabling them to create these dens and dig prey out of burrows.
Badgers also have a second (transparent) eyelid which can be closed to protect the badger’s eye from dirt. This eyelid is called the “nictitating membrane.” Diving birdssuch as the kingfisher also have this second eyelid.
When threatened, badgers release a foul smelling musk to drive off enemies. In the face of danger , badgers also become very vocal; hissing and snarling. Badgers are solitary (live alone) for most of the year . Adult males and females only get together to mate in late summer.
The honey badger likes sweet honey, but it does not have a sweet personality.
If grabbed by an attacker the honey badger can still twist around and bite itself free. In addition, it can make a terrible stink with its scent glands.
The honey badger is so fearless that it even eats porcupines and venomous snakes like puff adders and king cobras! They have also been known to take young cheetahs out of dens and to steal the food away from much larger animals like lions and leopards! While it uses it tough personality to hunt all types of animals, this fearless predator sometimes eats melons and berries as well.
The only threats to badgers are man and dogs. Man destroys the badger's habitat through development and changes of land use and will block setts and even indulge in badger-baiting.
The male badger is called a ‘boar’, the female a ‘sow’ and their young ‘cubs’. After mating the fertilised egg is retained by the sow as a blastocyst until later it implants in her uterus.
Although the badger's favourite food is worms, the diet chart shows that badgers are omnivorous. They will eat anything they can reach or catch, be it alive or dead.
Badgers live underground in a sett. They prefer well drained soil- holes at different levels improve ventilation.
Badgers can live as long as 15 years. However, they rarely survive that long in the wild, with an average life span of just three years.
Badger cubs are usually born in late January or February. They’ll spend their first two or three months underground, being looked after by their parents, and will only come to the sur face in the spring.
Badgers adore peanuts! If you want to encourage a local badger into your garden, leave out a handful of peanuts and see if they’re gone in the morning…
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