Learn One Thing A Day

I have just learned that in Australia there is a pink lake! It is the Hillier Lake and it's AWESOME! ( http://touristmeetstraveler.com/ ) The most notable feature of the lake is its pink colour. The colour is permanent, and does not alter when the water is taken in a container. Interestingly, the source of the pink colour has not been definitively proven in the case of Lake Hillier, but the pink colour could be due to red halophilic bacteria in the salt crusts. Despite the unusual hue, the lake exhibits no known adverse effects upon humans. From above, the lake appears a solid bubble gum pink  If you want to see where the Hillier Lake is, take a look on Google Maps From wikipedia

The loudest animal(s) on Earth? In terms of pure power nobody beats the Blue Whale ! Its whistles can indeed reach 188 dB! How big is this number?  Well, just consider that a human whisper at 1 m is about 20 dB, a conversation is 60-70 dB and a Jet Engine is 140 dB. What is the threshold of pain for a human ear? 120-130 dB! And at 160 dB your eardrum will rupture! The phenomenal blue whale whistles have been recorded more than 500 miles (805 kilometers) away! This is pretty much the distance between San Francisco and San Diego! Amazing! However the poweful whistle is not the only thing special about the Blue Whale. As I wrote in a previous post , it is also the largest animal that ever lived on Earth! Yes, even larger than the largest dinosaur! (Photograph by Flip Nicklin, National Geographic ) Another every interesting and loud animal is the Snapping Shrimp .  (Photograph from WaterFrame/Alamy, National Geografic ) Even though it doesn't sing as the wh...

Thanks to the youtube, today I learnt that chicken heads have a very sofisticated gyroscopic system! Watch the cool videos below, it's some really amazing stuff! The same guy got also the idea to mount a camera on a chicken head, you know... to make a chicken powered steedycam... and here is the result! Sources: Youtube Channel: Smarter Every Day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dPlkFPowCc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UytSNlHw8J8

Did you know that methane and propane are actually odorless gases?! If this is the case, what is that awful odor of rotten eggs you smell in your kitchen if you accidentally leave the gas open? It is an odorant (usually tetrahydrothiophene) having the only purpose to make detectable the flammable gases it is mixed with, whenever a leak occurs! The same trick applies for natural gas that is mostly methane or  GPL (or LPG or liquified petroleoum gas) that is mostly propane or butane. (image source ) References http://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/eh/chemfs/fs/Methane.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_petroleum_gas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrothiophene

Have you ever wondered how the months got their names? I did it and this is what I learnt. Crash course of calendar history ... To understand the origin, the etymology of these names, we have first to refer to Latin and to Roman culture. Indeed Latin names of months haven't changed since 8 AD! I will happily omit all changes, over the centuries, in the definition of months, I will consider only the names. If you want to know more, please check references. Let's start! In Latin,  the 12 Julian (and Gregorian ) months are: Ianuarius  Februarius  Martius Aprilis  Maius Iunis  Iulius (formerly  Quintilis ) Augustus (formerly  Sextilis ) September October  November December as you see, many of them sound quite familiar to their English, German or Italian versions! At the beginning,  there was the Ancient Roman calendar, introduced in 753 BC, according to tradition, by Romulus , the founder of ROME. It had only 30...

Several years ago, I watched on TV the nice movie Finding Forrester (2000, Sean Connery and Rob Brown). There, the main character ("Jamal") tells a fun fact about the origin of the BMW log , the famous German Auto company. Well, he explains that it represents "blades of a plane moving into the sky". This because, at the beginning,  BMW was "mainly" devoted to construction of aircraft motors. I have took for granted that cool explanation until today, when I decided to check... and, keeping the long story short, the facts are a bit different. The truth is that blue and white represent just the colors (in reversed order) of Bavaria, the region in the South Germany where the BMW was founded. Indeed, BMW stays for Bayerische Motoren Werke i.e. Bavarian Motor Works .  Only in the 1920s people pushed the new (and cooler) interpretation. You can read more about this hoax in this interesting article by Stephen Williams on the New York Times. ...

Some facts from Internet

I like this kind of posts on 9gag.com ! Very interesting the one about the statue of a person on a horse GO TO THE HOME PAGE

I found this on 9gag.com , and I think it's quite interesting. GO TO THE HOME PAGE

This is quite interesting ... From 9gag.com GO TO THE HOME PAGE

Hi Fellas, I have been away for a while, sorry ;) Here is a few things you don't know or you simply forgot, cool eh? I took them from 9gag.com GO TO THE HOME PAGE