Animals can rain from the sky
Amazing science fact: raining
animals is a relatively common
meteorological phenomenon,
with occurrences reported from
many countries throughout
history. The animals most likely to
drop from the sky in a rainfall are
fish and frogs, with birds coming
third. Sometimes the animals
survive the fall, especially fish,
suggesting a small time gap
between the extraction and the
actual drop. Several witnesses of
raining frogs describe the
animals as startled, though
healthy, and exhibiting relatively
normal behavior shortly after the
event. In some incidents,
however, the animals are frozen
to death or even completely
enclosed in blocks of ice. These
occurrences may be evidence for
the transport of the victims to
high altitudes, where the
temperature is below zero, and
they show how powerful
meteorological forces can be.
Most recent occurrences include
the rain of frogs and toads in
Serbia (2005) and London
(1998), and rains of fish in India
(2006) and Wales (2004).
In Honduras, the Lluvia de Peces
(Rain of Fishes) is a unique
phenomenon that has been
occurring for more than a
century on a yearly basis in the
country of Honduras. It occurs in
the Departamento de Yoro,
between the months of May and
July. Witnesses of this
phenomenon state that it begins
with is a dark cloud in the sky
followed by lightning, thunder,
strong winds and heavy rain for
2 to 3 hours. Once the rain has
stopped, hundreds of living fish
are found on the ground. People
take the fish home to cook and
eat them. Although some experts
have tried to explain the Rain of
Fishes as a natural
meteorological phenomenon, the
fish are not sea water fish, but
fresh water fish; they are not
dead, but alive; they are not
blind, they have eyes; they are
not big fish, but small; and the
type of fish is not found
elsewhere in the area. There is
no valid scientific explanation for
this phenomenon. Many people
believe this phenomenon occurs
because of Father José Manuel
Subirana, a Spanish catholic
missionary and considered by
many to be a Saint. He visited
Honduras from 1856-1864, and
upon encountering so many
poor people, prayed for 3 days
and 3 nights asking God for a
miracle to help the poor people
by providing food. The Rain of
Fishes has occurred ever since.
The universe is beige
Cosmic Latte is the color of the
universe, according to a team of
astronomers from Johns Hopkins
University. In 2001, Karl
Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry
determined that the color of the
universe was a greenish white,
but they soon corrected their
analysis in "The 2dF Galaxy
Redshift Survey: constraints on
cosmic star-formation history
from the cosmic spectrum",
published in 2002. In this paper,
they reported that their survey of
the color of all light in the
universe added up to a slightly
beige white. The survey included
more than 200,000 galaxies, and
measured the spectral range of
the light from a large volume of
the universe. The hexadecimal
RGB value for Cosmic Latte is
#FFF8E7.
In a Washington Post article, the
color was displayed. Glazebrook
jokingly said that he was looking
for suggestions for a name for
the new color. Several people
who read the article sent in
suggestions. "Cosmic Latte" was
selected.
Poisoning can make masses to
dance hysterically
Dancing mania is the name given
to a phenomenon that occurred
mainly in mainland Europe from
the 14th century through to the
17th century, in which groups of
people would dance through the
streets of towns or cities,
sometimes foaming at the mouth
or speaking in tongues, until they
collapsed from exhaustion. The
first major outbreak of the mania
was in Aachen, Germany, in July
1374. The dancers went through
the streets screaming of wild
visions, and even continued to
writhe and twist after they
collapsed from exhaustion. The
dancing quickly caught on, and
spread rapidly throughout
France and the Low Countries.
The mania reached its peak in
1418 in Strasbourg. At at least
one point, so many people had
either been afflicted with the
dancing mania, or caught up in
the dancing, or were trying to
give assistance, or simply
watching the events unfold, that
the town was brought to a
complete halt.
Although no real consensus
exists as to what caused the
mania, some cases, especially the
one in Aix-la-Chapelle, may have
had an explainable physical
cause. The symptoms of the
sufferers can be attributed to
ergot poisoning, or ergotism,
known in the Middle Ages as "St.
Anthony's Fire". It is caused by
eating rye infected with Claviceps
purpurea, a small fungus that
contains toxic and psychoactive
chemicals (alkaloids), including
lysergic acid (used in modern
times to synthesize LSD).
Symptoms of ergot poisoning
include nervous spasms,
psychotic delusions,
spontaneous abortion,
convulsions and gangrene; some
dancers claimed to have
experienced visions of a religious
nature.
The Moon is moving away from
the Earth
The Moon's orbit (its circular
path around the Earth) is indeed
getting larger, at a rate of about
3.8 centimeters per year. (The
Moon's orbit has a radius of
384,000 km.) The reason for the
increase is that the Moon raises
tides on the Earth. Because the
side of the Earth that faces the
Moon is closer, it feels a stronger
pull of gravity than the center of
the Earth. Similarly, the part of the
Earth facing away from the Moon
feels less gravity than the center
of the Earth. This effect stretches
the Earth a bit, making it a little
bit oblong.
It is expected that in 15 billion
years, the orbit will stabilize at
1.6 times its present size, and the
Earth day will be 55 days long
equal to the time it will take the
Moon to orbit the Earth.
Belly button lint comes from
your underwear
Many people find that, at the
beginning and end of the day, a
small lump of fluff has appeared
in the navel cavity. The reasons
for this have been the subject of
idle speculation for many years
but in 2001, Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki
of the University of Sydney,
Australia undertook a systematic
survey to determine the ins and
outs of navel lint. His primary
findings were as follows:
Navel lint consists primarily of
stray fibres from one's clothing,
mixed with some dead skin cells
and strands of body hair. The
rotting cells can create
unpleasant odors.
Contrary to expectations, navel
lint appears to migrate upwards
from underwear rather than
downwards from shirts or tops.
The migration process is the
result of the frictional drag of
body hair on underwear, which
drags stray fibres up into the
navel.
Women experience less navel lint
because of their finer and
shorter body hairs. Conversely,
older men experience it more
because of their coarser and
more numerous hairs.
Navel lint's characteristic blue-
gray tint is likely the averaging of
the colors of fibres present in
clothing; the same color as
clothes dryer lint.
The existence of navel lint is
entirely harmless, and requires
no corrective action.
Fly larvae helps to heal wounds
quicker
Long ago, some doctors noticed
soldiers that had maggots on
their wounds healed quicker
than those without maggots.
Maggots eat the dead skin cells
and bacteria. Maggot Therapy
(also known as Maggot
Debridement Therapy (MDT),
larval therapy, larva therapy, or
larvae therapy) is the intentional
introduction of live, disinfected
maggots or fly larvae into non-
healing skin or soft tissue
wounds of a human or other
animal. This practice was widely
used before the discovery of
antibiotics, as it serves to clean
the dead tissue within a wound
in order to promote healing.
Animals can naturally explode
Natural animal explosions can
occur for a variety of reasons. On
2004, a buildup of gas inside a
decomposing sperm whale,
measuring 17 meters (56 ft.)
long and weighing 50 tons,
caused it to burst in Taiwan. The
explosion was reported to have
splattered blood and whale
entrails over surrounding shop-
fronts, bystanders, and cars.
A significant population of toads
in Germany and Denmark were
exploding in April 2005 in an act
described as a self-defence
mechanism that failed, as it
consisted of puffing up to look
bigger while under attack by
crows.
You can still have an erection
once dead
A death erection (sometimes
referred to as "angel lust") is a
post-mortem erection which
occurs when a male individual
dies vertically or face-down with
the cadaver remaining in this
position. During life, the pumping
of blood by the heart ensures a
relatively even distribution
around the blood vessels of the
human body. Once this
mechanism has ended, only the
force of gravity acts upon the
blood. As with any mass, the
blood settles at the lowest point
of the body and causes edema or
swelling to occur; the
discoloration caused by this is
called lividity.
If an individual dies vertically
such as in a hanging, the blood
will settle in the legs and pool at
the feet. The pressure will be
greatest as the weight of the
blood pushes down. This causes
the blood vessels and tissues in
the feet to engorge to their
greatest elastic capacity and hold
the greatest volume of blood
possible. This effect occurs right
up the legs although to a lesser
extent than the feet and is also
notable at the waist. The blood
which remains in the torso
attempts to move to a lower
position due to gravity, and as
the blood in the waist (which
cannot move down due to the
legs being full) causes the penis,
consisting of erectile tissue, to fill
with blood and expand. This is
the death erection. As long as the
body remains in this position the
effect will continue.
Male seahorses can get
pregnant
Seahorses reproduce in an
unusual way: the male becomes
pregnant. Pipefishes and
seahorses are the only species in
the animal kingdom to which the
term "male pregnancy" has been
applied.
The male seahorse has a brood
pouch in which he carries eggs
deposited by the female. The
mating pair entwine their tails
and the female aligns a long tube
called an ovipositor with the
male's pouch. The eggs move
through the tube into the male's
pouch where he then fertilizes
them. The embryos develop in
ten days to six weeks, depending
on species and water conditions.
When the male gives birth he
pumps his tail until the baby
seahorses emerge.
The male's pouch regulates
salinity for the eggs, slowly
increasing in the pouch to match
the water outside as the eggs
mature. Hatched offspring are
independent of their parents.
Some spend time developing
among the ocean plankton. At
times, the male seahorse may try
to consume some of the
previously released offspring.
Other species (H. zosterae)
immediately begin life as sea-
floor inhabitants (benthos).
A fetus can get trapped inside
of its twin
Fetus in fetu (or Foetus in foetu)
describes an extremely rare
abnormality that involves a fetus
getting trapped inside of its twin.
It continues to survive as a
parasite even past birth by
forming an umbilical cord-like
structure that leeches its twin's
blood supply until it grows so
large that it starts to harm the
host, at which point doctors
usually intervene. Invariably the
parasitic fetus is anencephalic
(without a brain) and lacks
internal organs, and as such is
unable to survive on its own,
though it may have almost
human (albeit underdeveloped
and bizarre) features such as
limbs, digits, hair, nails and teeth.
Fetus in fetu is such a rare
condition that only some 91
cases worldwide have ever been
reported. Fetus in fetu happens
very early in a twin pregnancy,
when one fetus wraps around
and envelops the other. The
dominant fetus grows, while the
fetus that would have been its
twin lives on throughout the
pregnancy, feeding off its host
twin like a kind of parasite.
Usually, both twins die before
birth from the strain of sharing a
placenta. Sometimes, however,
the host twin survives and is
delivered.
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