Facts about elephants

 Intelligence

Elephants are some of the most intelligent animals on Earth. Their brains weigh 5kg, much more than the brain of any other land animal. Their brains have more complex folds than all animals except whales, which is thought to be a major factor in their intellect. They commonly show grief, humor, compassion, cooperation, self-awareness, tool-use, playfulness, and excellent learning abilities. An elephant in Korea surprised its zoo keepers by independently learning to mimic the commands they gave it by verbalizing on the end of its trunk, successfully learning 8 words and their context. Elephants have a more developed hippocampus, a brain

Mass extinctions

Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction

This is the most famous extinction event. After the Jurassic ended, dinosaurs continued to proliferate and evolve throughout the subsequent Cretaceous period. They specialized into the forms which are familiar to many children today. More importantly, it was only during the Cretaceous period that life finally recovered from the much earlier Ordovician-Silurian extinction. The number of species at last matched and then exceeded the number from the Ordovician period, over 300 million years prior, for the first time. The synapsids finally evolved into small, rodent-like creatures, which were the first true mammals. 65 million years ago, a huge meteorite impacted the earth at Chicxulub in modern Mexico, disrupting the atmosphere and causing severe global warming, in turn killing 75% of all species. This meteorite contained a high

Weird college courses

The Art of Walking

The Art of Walking might seem trivial to some, but not to Dr Ken Keffer, Professor of Modern Languages at Centre College, Kentucky. He conducts a class dedicated to the understanding of ‘intelligible and sensual design in inner and outer nature’,first expounded by Immanuel Kant. Apart from the customary walks which he takes with his students to the nearby Perryville Battlefield and the surrounding areas,Dr Keffer assigns

Most powerful drug lords

 Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was the most notorious and violent drug lord of the Medellín Cartel. Escobar was killed by the Search Bloc, a group of Colombian police devoted to capturing Escobar, on a Colombian rooftop in 1993; by this time, the cartel had already been severely damaged. However, there would be no rest. After Escobar’s death, the Medellín Cartel fragmented and the cocaine market soon became

Incredible medical treatments

 Leech Therapy

Medicinal leeches are now making a comeback in microsurgery. They provide an effective means to reduce blood coagulation, relieve venous pressure from pooling blood, and in reconstructive surgery to stimulate circulation in reattachment operations for organs with critical blood flow, such as eye lids, fingers, and ears. The therapeutic effect is not from the blood taken in the meal, but from the continued and steady bleeding from the wound left after the leech has detached. The most common complication from leech treatment is

Controversial flags

The Flag of the USA

Also called the Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, and The Star-Spangled Banner, the flag features fifty stars, representing the fifty states, and thirteen stripes, which represent the original thirteen colonies that rebelled against the British crown and became the first states in the Union.

The American flag is to some a symbol of the freedom, liberty and opportunity found in the USA, while to others it represents America’s military presence around the world or economic dominance. While it is not uncommon to see news footage of the American flag being burned in protest in the Middle East, it is also sometimes burnt in protest within the country. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that, due to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is unconstitutional for a government (whether federal,

Whatchamacallits and their real names

Tenesmus

Use: “Can I please use your bathroom? I have a serious case of tenesmus.”

Tenesmus is the uncomfortable feeling one has when needing to poop. It also refers to the feeling of having not emptied the bowel fully or the need to strain to do so. To put it more simply, tenesmus is a distressing but ineffectual urge to evacuate the rectum or bladder. The word, appropriately, comes to us from the Greek “teinesmos” which means “to stretch” or “to strain”.

Most weird jobs

 Gong Farmer

A gong farmer or gongfermor was the term used in Tudor England for a person who removed human excrement from privies and cesspits, gong being another word for dung. Gong farmers were only allowed to work at night and the waste they collected, known as night soil, had to be taken outside the city or town boundaries. As flushing water closets became more widely used, the profession of gong farming disappeared. A latrine or privy was the toilet of the Middle Ages. A gong farmer dug out the cesspits and emptied the excrement. Gong farmers were only allowed to work between 9 pm and 5 am, and were

Interesting facts about the Mayans

 Ancient Mystery

The Fact: No one really knows what caused the collapse of the Mayan culture

For reasons that are still debated, the Maya centers of the southern lowlands went into decline during the 8th and 9th centuries and were abandoned shortly thereafter. This decline was coupled with a cessation of monumental inscriptions and large-scale architectural construction. Non-ecological theories of Maya decline are divided into several subcategories, such as overpopulation, foreign invasion, peasant revolt, and the collapse of key trade routes. Ecological hypotheses include environmental disaster, epidemic disease, and

The forgotten symbols

 XMas

Most historians agree that Christ was most likely born in the spring, when Mary and Joseph went to pay their taxes. If that is the case, why do we celebrate Christmas in the wintertime? Pope Gregory can be thanked. He ordered the absorption of other religious festivals into Christianity. Pagan celebrations lightened the burden of cold, dark winters, and evergreen trees were a symbol of hope, that spring and new life would return. It was a natural fit with Christ’s promise of resurrection.

Christmas trees as we know them probably began in the 16th century. It is said that Martin Luther, walking home at night, saw stars through the branches of evergreens and found it a beautiful sight. When he duplicated the effect by putting candles on an evergreen, the modern Christmas tree was born.

Early Christians in the English-speaking world avoided Christmas trees, seeing them as a pagan custom. They became popular in America in the 1820s among Pennsylvania Germans, and the idea spread from

From Poison to Cure

Deadly Nightshade

Atropine is a tropane alkaloid extracted from deadly nightshade, jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), mandrake and other plants of the family Solanaceae. Injections of atropine are used in the treatment of bradycardia (an extremely low heart rate), asystole and pulseless electrical activity (PEA) in cardiac arrest. Atropine’s actions on the parasympathetic nervous system inhibits salivary, sweat, and mucus glands. This

Cutest animals ever

 African Pygmy Hedgehog

These mammals are the most adorable members the family Erinaceidae (mostly hedgehogs), even though it is filled with cute critters. You probably have seen one of these before or at least know how they look like. They are vaguely rodent-like mammals that have many small spines on their back. They can roll into a ball to protect themselves. This particular hedgehog has been domesticated, so you can have one for a pet without too much trouble.

Some facts about cheese

Great Cheese Quotes

“A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull, it may be naive, it may be over sophisticated. Yet it remains, cheese, milk’s leap toward immortality.” Clifton Fadiman (American writer and editor; New Yorker book reviewer, 1904-1999)

“A dinner which ends without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye.” Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (French lawyer and politician, epicure and gastronome, 1755-1826)

“Many’s the long night I’ve dreamed of cheese — toasted, mostly.” Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish