Tuesday, 18 February 2014

[www.keralites.net] This World Has Many Wonders to Show You...

 

Amazing Wonders of The World!

From the mysterious sailing stones of death valley to red tides, ornage moons and ice circles - our world is full of these bizarre phenomena!Here are 13 of the most interesting wonders of this planet!


 

1. Sailing Stones

 
The mysterious moving stones of the packed-mud desert of Death Valley have been a center of scientific controversy for decades. Rocks weighing up to hundreds of pounds have been known to move up to hundreds ofyards at a time. 

 
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Some scientists have proposed that a combination of strong winds and surface ice account for these movements. However, this theory does not explain evidence of different rocks starting side by side and moving at different rates and in disparate directions. Moreover, the physics calculations do not fully support this theory as wind speeds ofhundreds of miles per hour would be needed to move some of the stones


 

2. Columnar Basalt

 
When a thick lava flow cools, it contracts vertically but cracks perpendicular to its directional flow with remarkable geometric regularity-in most cases forming a regular grid of remarkable hexagonal extrusionsthat almost appear to be made by man. 

 
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One of the most famous such examples is the Giants Causewayon the coast ofIreland (shown above), though the largest and most widely recognized would be Devils Tower in Wyoming. Basalt also forms different but equally fascinating ways when eruptions are exposed to air or water.


 

3. Blue Holes

Blue holes are giant and sudden drops in underwater elevation that get their name from the dark and foreboding blue tone they exhibit when viewed from above in relationship to surrounding waters. They can be hundreds of feet deep and while divers are able to explore some of them they are largely devoid of oxygen that would support sea lifedue to poor water circulation - leaving them eerily empty. 

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Some blue holes, however, contain ancient fossil remains that have been discovered, preserved in their depths.

4. Red Tides


 
Red tides are also known as algal blooms sudden influxes of massive amounts of colored single-cell algae that can convert entire areas of an ocean or beach into a blood red color. While some of these can be relatively harmless, others can be harbingers of deadly toxins that cause the deaths of fish, birds and marine mammals.

 
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 In some cases, even humans have been harmed by red tides though no human exposure are known to have been fatal. While they can be fatal, the constituent phytoplankton in red tides are not harmful in small numbers. 

5. Ice Circles


 
While many see these apparently perfect ice circles as worthy of conspiracy theorizing, scientists generally accept that they are formed by eddies in the water that spin a sizable piece of ice in acircular motion. As a result of this rotation, other pieces of ice and flotsam wear relatively evenly at the edges of the ice until it slowly forms into an essentially ideal circle. 

 
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Ice circles have been seen with diameters of over 500 feet and can also at times be found in clusters and groups of different sizes as shown above.

6. Mammatus Clouds


 
True to their ominous appearance, mammatus clouds are often harbingers of a coming storm or other extreme weather system. Typically composed primarily of ice, they can extend for hundreds of miles in each direction and individual formations can remain visibly static for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. While they may appear foreboding they are merely the messengers - appearing around, before or even after severe weather.

 
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7. Fire Rainbows

A circumhorizontal fire rainbow arc occurs at a rare confluence of right time and right place for the sun and certain clouds. Crystals within the clouds refract light into the various visible waves of the spectrum but only if they are arrayed correctly relative to the ground below. 

 
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Due to the rarity with which all of these events happen in conjunction with one another, there are relatively few remarkable photos of this phenomenon.

8.Sinkholes

Sinkholes are one of the worlds scariest natural phenomena.

 
Over time, water erodes the soil under the planets surface until in some cases, quite suddenly,the land above gives way and collapses into the earth. Many sinkholes occur naturally while others are the result of human intervention. 

 
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Displacing groundwater can open cavities while broken pipes can erode otherwise stable subterranean sediments. Urban sinkholes, up to hundreds of feet deep have formed and consumed parts of city blocks, sidewalks and even entire buildings.

 


 

9. Penitentes

 
Named after peak-hooded New Mexican monks (lower right above), penitentes are dazzling naturally-forming ice blades that stick up at sharp angles toward the sun. Rarely found except at high altitudes, they can grow up taller than a human and form in vast fields. 

 
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As ice melts in particular patterns, valleys formed by initial melts leave mountains in their wake. Strangely, these formations ultimately slow the melting process as the peaks cast shadows on the deeper surfaces below and allow for winds to blow over the peaks, cooling them.


 

10. Lenticular Clouds

 
Ever wonder the truth about UFOs?

 
Avoided by traditional pilots but loved by sailplane aviators, lenticular clouds are masses of cloud with strong internal uplift that can drive a motorless flyer to high elevations. Their shape is quite often mistaken for a mysterious flying object or the artificial cover for one. 

 
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Generally, lenticular clouds are formed as wind speeds up while moving around a large land object such as a mountain.

11. Sundogs


 
Sundogs are the product of light passing through crystals. The particular shape and orientation of the crystals can have a drastic visual impact for the viewer, producing a longer tail and changing the range of colors one sees. The relative height of the sun in the sky shifts the distance the sundogs appear to be on either side of the sun. 

 
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Varying climactic conditions on otherplanets in our solar system produce halos with up to four sundogs from those planets perspectives. Sundogs have been speculated about and discussed since ancient times and written records describing the various attributes of our sun date back the Egyptians and Greeks. 


 

12. Fire Whirls

 
Fire whirls (also known as fire devils or tornadoes) appear in or around raging fires when the right combination of climactic conditions is present. Fire whirls can be spawned by other natural events such as earthquakes and thunderstorms, and can be incredibly dangerous, in some cases spinning well out of the zone of a fire itself to cause devastation and death in a radius not even reached by heat or flame. 
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Fire whirls have been known to be nearly a mile high, have wind speeds of over 100 miles per hour and to last for 20 or more minutes.

13. Orange Moons


 
This last phenomena is something most people have seen before - beautiful orange moon hanging low in the sky. But what causes this phenomena? And, for that matter, does the moon have a color at all? When the moon appears lower on the horizon,rays of light bouncing off ithave to pass through a great deal more of our atmosphere which slowly strips away everything but yellows, oranges and reds. 

 
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The bottommost image above is true to the hues of the moon but has enhanced colors to more clearly show the differences in shade that illustrate the mixed topography and minerology that tell the story of the moons surface. Looking at the colors in combination with the craters one can start to trace the history of impacts and consequent material movements across the face of our mysterious moon.


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[www.keralites.net] 'I will never sell him - he is priceless!' Meet the doting owner with a bull worth RS 10 CRORE

 

'I will never sell him - he is priceless!' Meet the doting owner with a bull worth RS 10 CRORE 
 

By MANJEET SEHGAL


 

His daily diet consists of 10 litres of milk, 3kg of curd and 10kg of feed. His regimen also includes a 6km walk. 
 

Raju, a Murrah bull, is the star attraction at the Progressive Punjab Agriculture Summit 2014 (February 16-19) being organised in Mohali near Chandigarh by the Punjab government these days.

A prized catch at Rs 10 crore, the five-and-a-half- year-old bull is attracting visitors from far and wide. 
 

It helps that he weighs 12 quintals, is 11.5ft long and 5.8ft tall, and is a recipient of cash prizes worth Rs 18 lakh at various cattle festivals.

 
Proud parent: Owner Santokh Somal says he has reared his prize bull Raju like a child

Proud parent: Owner Santokh Somal says he has reared his prize bull Raju like a child


 

 

Raju's Kapurthala-based owner, Santokh Somal, said: "Raju is very dear to me; I have reared him like a child. People have offered me Rs 10 crore for him but I did not sell him. I will never sell him. He is priceless."

Another bull named Yuvraj of the same breed with a price tag of Rs 2 crore is also attracting a lot of eyeballs. The bull is owned by Karamvir Singh of Sunario, Kurukshetra, and has the good fortune of sleeping in an air-conditioned room. 
 

At five years, he is 14ft in length and is 5.7ft tall. He drinks 20 litres milk every day besides a bottle of country liquor. His daily diet also includes 5kg of apples and 5kg of feed. 
 

Yuvraj has won cash prizes of around Rs 2 lakh at various cattle festivals. 
 

Karamvir Singh said: "Yuvraj is not a bull, he is my son. I have reared him like a child and I love him a lot." 
 

 
SUPER BULL

 

Yuvraj has also proven to be a cash cow for him, as the bull's semen is in great demand across North India. 
 

The Murrah bull is originally from the Punjab and Haryana states of India and the Punjab province of Pakistan, but has been used to improve the milk production of dairy buffalo in other countries, such as Italy and Egypt. 
 

Then there is Aalishaan, a horse which is pampered with regular shampoo baths. What makes this horse all the more special is that in January 2013 Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was so impressed by the four-year-old horse that he offered to buy it for Rs 1.25 crore. However, Aalishaan's owner Harinder Singh simply refused to part with him. 
 

Aalishaan is 65 inches tall and is of Marwadi breed. 
 

"The chief minister expressed his interest to buy him and even offered a price of Rs 1.25 crore. But we do not want to sell him; we have kept him for breeding," says Parjant Singh, brother of Harinder Singh.

He added that many people had offered to buy Aalishaan, on whom the family spends Rs 1,000 every day, at the agriculture summit - but they refused. The family owns 20 horses in total.

 
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was so impressed by the four-year-old horse that he offered to buy it for Rs 1.25 crore

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was so impressed by the four-year-old horse that he offered to buy it for Rs 1.25 crore

 

 

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Ravi

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[www.keralites.net] Why does the Brain remember Dreams ?

 

Why does the brain remember dreams?

 1

 
Some people recall a dream every morning, whereas others rarely recall one. A team led by Perrine Ruby, an Inserm Research Fellow at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center (Inserm/CNRS/Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1), has studied the brain activity of these two types of dreamers in order to understand the differences between them.
In a study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, the researchers show that the temporo-parietal junction, an information-processing hub in the brain, is more active in high dream recallers. Increased activity in this brain region might facilitate attention orienting toward external stimuli and promote intrasleep wakefulness, thereby facilitating the encoding of dreams in memory.
The reason for dreaming is still a mystery for the researchers who study the difference between "high dream recallers," who recall dreams regularly, and "low dream recallers," who recall dreams rarely. In January 2013 (work published in the journal Cerebral Cortex), the team led by Perrine Ruby, Inserm researcher at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, made the following two observations: "high dream recallers" have twice as many time of wakefulness during sleep as "low dream recallers" and their brains are more reactive to auditory stimuli during sleep and wakefulness. This increased brain reactivity may promote awakenings during the night, and may thus facilitate memorisation of dreams during brief periods of wakefulness.
 
In this new study, the research team sought to identify which areas of the brain differentiate high and low dream recallers. They used Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to measure the spontaneous brain activity of 41 volunteers during wakefulness and sleep. The volunteers were classified into 2 groups: 21 "high dream recallers" who recalled dreams 5.2 mornings per week in average, and 20 "low dream recallers," who reported 2 dreams per month in average. High dream recallers, both while awake and while asleep, showed stronger spontaneous brain activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and in the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), an area of the brain involved in attention orienting toward external stimuli.
"This may explain why high dream recallers are more reactive to environmental stimuli, awaken more during sleep, and thus better encode dreams in memory than low dream recallers. Indeed the sleeping brain is not capable of memorising new information; it needs to awaken to be able to do that," explains Perrine Ruby, Inserm Research Fellow.
The South African neuropsychologist Mark Solms had observed in earlier studies that lesions in these two brain areas led to a cessation of dream recall. The originality of the French team's results is to show brain activity differences between high and low dream recallers during sleep and also during wakefulness.
"Our results suggest that high and low dream recallers differ in dream memorization, but do not exclude that they also differ in dream production. Indeed, it is possible that high dream recallers produce a larger amount of dreaming than low dream recallers" concludes the research team.
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Nandakumar

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