Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) made sketches of a submarine and William Bourne, a British mathematician, drew plans for a submarine in 1578. But it was only in 1620 that Cornelius van Drebbel, a Dutch inventor, managed to build a submarine. He wrapped a wooden rowboat tightly in waterproofed leather and had air tubes with floats to the surface to provide oxygen. Of course, there were no engines yet, so the oars went through the hull at leather gaskets. He took the first trip with 12 oarsmen in the Thames River - staying submerged for 3 hours.

The first submarine used for military purposes was built in 1776 by David Bushnell (1742-1824) of the US. His "Turtle" was a one-man, wooden submarine powered by hand-turned propellers. It was used during the American Revolution against British warships. The Turtle would approach enemy ships partially submerged to attach explosives to the ships's hull. The Turtle worked well but the explosives did not.

Two rival inventors from the US developed the first true submarines in the 1890s. The US Navy purchased submarines built by John P Holland, while Russia and Japan opted for the designs of Simon Lake. Their submarines used petrol or steam engines for surface cruising and electric motors for underwater travel. They also invented torpedoes which were propelled by small electric motors, thereby introducing one of the most dangerous weapons in the world.

Submarines are also called U-boats, which is short for Unterseeboot, the German word for undersea boat.

The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched in 1955. In 1958 the Nautilus made the first voyage under the polar ice pack, completing the 2945 km (1,830 miles) journey in 6 days.

The first submerged circumnavigation of earth was made in 1960 by the nuclear submarine USS Triton.

The human head contains 22 bones, consisting the cranium and the facial bones. The cranium is formed by 8 bones: the frontal bone, two parietal bones, two temporal bones, the occipital bone in the back, the ethmoid bone behind the nose, and the sphenoid bone. The face consists of 14 bones including the maxilla (upper jaw) and mandible (lower jaw). (The skull has many little holes in its base which allow the cranial nerves to travel to their destinations.)

The cranium protects the brain, which, for an average adult male weighs about 1400 gram (49oz). The brain of Russian novelist Turgenev, weighed 2021g (71oz), Bismarck's brain weighed 1807g (64oz), while that of famous French statesman Gambetta was only 1294g (46oz). Female average brain mass is slightly less than that of males. The largest woman's brain recorded weighed 1742g (6oz). Einstein's brain was of average size.

An elephant's brain weighs 5000g (176oz or 11 lb), a whale's 10000g (352oz or 22lb). In proportion to the body, the whale has a much smaller brain than man. This seem to give man the edge, until it was discovered that the dwarf monkey has 1g of brain per 27g (0.95oz) of body, and the capuchin monkey has 1g of brain per 17,5g body, whereas man has 1 gram of brain to 44g of body.

Most scientists believe that "photographic memory" is a myth. Clever people train their brains to remember well. In fact, as humans we simply do not remember things well. Of the three beings known to be able to recognise themselves in the mirror, the orangutan, the dolphin and the human, only the latter turns around and instantly cannot remember what his/her own face looks like. (Try drawing a picture of yourself without looking in the mirror:)

The human brains consists of more than 100 billion neurons (nerve cells) through which the brain's commands are sent in the form of electric pulses. These pulses travel at more than 400 km/h (250 mph), creating enough electricity to power a lightbulb. The brain consumes more energy than any other organ, burning up a whopping one-fifth of the food we take in.

It is estimated that the mental capacity of a 100-year old human with perfect memory could be represented by computer with 10 to the power of 15 bits (one petabit). At the current rate of computer chip development, that figure can be reached in about 35 years. However, that represents just memory capacity, not the extremely complex processes of thought creation and emotions.

But consider this: for all the complexity of the brain, you still have only one thought at a time. Make it a positive thought.

Factoids
One-quarter of the brains in used to control the eye. We actually see with our brains, with the eyes basically being cameras.
You're born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206.

Roman tragedian Seneca (4 BC–AD 65) is said to have read "all the books in Rome" by peering through a glass globe of water. A thousand years later, presbyopic monks used segments of glass spheres that could be laid against reading material to magnify the letters, basically a magnifying glass, called a "reading stone." They based their invention on the theories of the Arabic mathematician Alhazen (roughly 1000 AD). Yet, Greek philosopher Aristophanes (c. 448 BC-380 BC) knew that glass could be used as a magnifying glass. Nevertheless it was not until roughly 150 AD that Ptolemy discovered the basic rules of light diffraction and wrote extensively on the subject. (The laws of diffraction was formulated much later by Snellius, between 1600 and 1620.)

Venetian glass blowers, who had learned how to produce glass for reading stones, later constructed lenses that could be held in a frame in front of the eye instead of directly on the reading material. It was intended for use by one eye; the idea to frame two ground glasses using wood or horn, making them into a single unit was born in the 13th century.

In 1268 Roger Bacon made the first known scientific commentary on lenses for vision correction. Salvino D’Armate of Pisa and Alessandro Spina of Florence are often credited with the invention of spectacles around 1284 but there is no evidence to conclude this. The first mention of actual glasses is found in a 1289 manuscript when a member of the Popozo family wrote: "I am so debilitated by age that without the glasses known as spectacles, I would no longer be able to read or write." In 1306, a monk of Pisa mentioned in a sermon: "It is not yet 20 years since the art of making spectacles, one of the most useful arts on earth, was discovered." But nobody mentioned the inventor.

In the Middle Ages wearing spectacles signified knowledge and learning. Painters of the time often included spectacles when portraying famous persons even when depicting people who lived before the known invention of spectacles. On numerous paintings the religious teacher Sofronius Eusebius Hieronymus (340 - 420 AD) is portrayed with a lion, a skull and a pair of reading glasses. He is the patron saint of spectacle makers.

It actually is true that eating carrots can help you see better. Carrots contain Vitamin A, which feeds the chemicals that the eye shafts and cones are made of. The shafts capture black and white vision. The cones capture colour images.

The oldest known lens was found in the ruins of ancient Nineveh and was made of polished rock crystal.

In 1718, Edward Scarlett, a London optician, put arms on eyeglasses to hold them on the ears.

About one person in 30 is colour blind. More men than women are affected by colour blindness.

Healthy eyes are so sensitive to light that a candle burning in the dark can be detected 1,6km (1 mile) away. The human eye can distinguish about 10 million different colours. There currently is no machine that can achieve this remarkable feat.

About 3,6 billion of the world's 5.2 billion hectares of useful dryland for agriculture has suffered erosion and soil degradation. In more than 100 countries, 1 billion of the 6 billion world population is affected by desertification, forcing people to leave their farms for jobs in the cities.

Desertification is devouring more than 20,000 square miles of land worldwide every year. Desertification affects 74% of the land in North America. In Africa, more than 2.4 million acres of land (73% of its drylands) are affected by desertification.

Desertification takes place in dryland areas where the earth is especially fragile, where rainfall is nil and the climate harsh. The result is the destruction of topsoil followed by loss of the land's ability to sustain crops, livestock or human activity. The economic impact is horrendous, with a loss of more than $40 billion per year in agricultural goods and an increase in agricultural prices.

Climatic changes can trigger the desertification process, but human activities frequently are the proximate cause. Overcultivation exhausts the soil. Deforestation removes trees that hold the soil to the land. Overgrazing of livestock strips the land of grasses. According to a UN study, about 30% of earth's land - including the 70% of dryland - is affected by drought. Every day, about 33,000 people starve to death.

Desertification creates conditions that intensify wildfires and stirring winds, adding to the tremendous pressure to earth's most precious resource, water, and, of course, the animals dependant on it. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the world lost about 30% of its natural wealth between 1970 and 1995.

Dust from deserts and drylands is blown into cities around the world. Dust from Africa reaches Europe through the Pasat wind, and even reaches US cities. Dust particles, which are less than 2,5 millionths of a metre in size, are inhaled, causing health problems and have been shown to boost death rates.

Desertification can be stopped, but unfortunately is usually is brought to public attention when the process is well underway.

Deserts are encroaching cities. Sahara dunes tower over Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania. Just 5,000 years ago, the Sahara was covered with grasses and shrubs.

About 3,6 billion of the world's 5.2 billion hectares of useful dryland for agriculture has suffered erosion and soil degradation. In more than 100 countries, 1 billion of the 6 billion world population is affected by desertification, forcing people to leave their farms for jobs in the cities.

Desertification is devouring more than 20,000 square miles of land worldwide every year. Desertification affects 74% of the land in North America. In Africa, more than 2.4 million acres of land (73% of its drylands) are affected by desertification.

Desertification takes place in dryland areas where the earth is especially fragile, where rainfall is nil and the climate harsh. The result is the destruction of topsoil followed by loss of the land's ability to sustain crops, livestock or human activity. The economic impact is horrendous, with a loss of more than $40 billion per year in agricultural goods and an increase in agricultural prices.

Climatic changes can trigger the desertification process, but human activities frequently are the proximate cause. Overcultivation exhausts the soil. Deforestation removes trees that hold the soil to the land. Overgrazing of livestock strips the land of grasses. According to a UN study, about 30% of earth's land - including the 70% of dryland - is affected by drought. Every day, about 33,000 people starve to death.

Desertification creates conditions that intensify wildfires and stirring winds, adding to the tremendous pressure to earth's most precious resource, water, and, of course, the animals dependant on it. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the world lost about 30% of its natural wealth between 1970 and 1995.

Dust from deserts and drylands is blown into cities around the world. Dust from Africa reaches Europe through the Pasat wind, and even reaches US cities. Dust particles, which are less than 2,5 millionths of a metre in size, are inhaled, causing health problems and have been shown to boost death rates.

Desertification can be stopped, but unfortunately is usually is brought to public attention when the process is well underway.

Deserts are encroaching cities. Sahara dunes tower over Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania. Just 5,000 years ago, the Sahara was covered with grasses and shrubs.

The highest bridge in the world can be found in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan mountains. The valley lies at an altitude of about 5 602 m (18,379 ft) above sea level on the India side of Kashmir. Called the Baily Bridge, it is only 30 metres (98 ft) long, and was built by the Indian Army in August 1982.

If you were thinking of the bridge that stands highest over water, then the Royal Gorge Bridge over the Arkansas River in Colorado, US is your answer. Built in 1929 for $350,000, it spans 321 m (1,053 ft) above the water.

The highest road in the world runs along the Himalayan ridge in Kashmir.

The largest bridge in the world is the 13,27 km (8,25 miles) long Trans Bay Bridge which links San Francisco to Oakland. It was built in 1936 at a cost of $77 million. The longest bridge in the world is the Pontchartrain bridge in New Orleans, USA with a total length of 38,6 km (24 miles). It was completed in 1956. The most expensive bridge is the Seto-Ohashi-Kojima bridge in Japan. At 13,22 km (8,21 miles) long, it was built in 1988 at a cost of $8.3 billion.

The world's largest natural bridge is the Rainbow Bridge, tucked away among the rugged, isolated canyons at the base of Navajo Mountain, Utah, USA. It is a natural wonder. From its base to the top of the arch, it reaches 88,4 m (290 ft) - nearly the height of the Statue of Liberty - and spans 83,8 m (275 ft) across the river. The top of the arch is 12,8 m (42 ft) thick and 10 m (33 ft) wide.

The World's busiest bridge is the Howrah bridge across the river Hooghly in Calcutta. In addition to 57000 vehicles a day it carries a huge number of pedestrians across its 457 m (1,500 ft) long 22 m (72 ft) wide span.

Japanese Yakult.

Chinese Yakult.

Yakult Light 65ml from Australia

Yakult (ヤクルト, Yakuruto) is a Japanese probiotic milk-like product made by fermenting a mixture of skimmed milk with a special strain of the bacteria Lactobacillus casei Shirota. Yakult Honsha Co., Ltd. (株式会社ヤクルト本社, Kabushiki-gaisha Yakuruto Honsha) (TYO: 2267) It was created by Minoru Shirota who graduated from the Medical School of Kyoto University in 1930. In 1935, he started manufacturing and selling Yakult. Official claims state that the name is derived from jahurto, an older form of jogurto, the Esperanto word for "yogurt".^[1][2] Since then, Yakult has also introduced a line of beverages for the Japanese market that contain Bifidobacterium breve bacteria, and has also used its lactobacilli research to develop cosmetics. More recently, the Yakult Honsha played a major role in developing the chemotherapy drug irinotecan (Camptosar, CPT-11).^[3]

Yakult also owns one of Japan's major baseball franchises, the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.

After its introduction in Japan and Taiwan, Yakult was first sold in the Western world in Brazil in 1966, due to the large number of Japanese immigrants in the country, before it was marketed elsewhere^[4]. Today, Yakult is sold in 31 countries^[5], although its bacteria cultures are provided from a mother strain from Japan regardless of production location.^{[citation needed]}

Yakult is marketed in different sizes. In Australia, Europe and Indonesia, Yakult comes in 65mL bottles. In America, Japan and the Philippines, 80 ml bottles are available. In Singapore (where it is known as 益多 yì duō), Taiwan (where it is known as 養樂多 yǎng lè duō) and mainland China (where it is known as 益力多 yì lì duō), it comes in 100 ml bottles. ^[6][7][8] In South Korea, where it is also produced, it is called yakult (hangul: 야쿠르트) and is marketed by the Korea Yakult company.

Singapore is the only country where Yakult is available in flavors (orange, grape, and apple) other than the original.

• Ingredients

Standard Yakult (excludes variations such as in Yakult Light) contains ^[9]:

• Sugar (sucrose) to balance sourness with sweetness.
• Skim milk powder
• Dextrose
• Natural flavours
• Live Lactobacillus casei shirota strain , 6.5 billions per 65 mL bottle (concentration of 10⁸ CFU/mL)
• Water

• Scientific basis

The claimed benefits are supported by an array of scientific studies according to the manufacturer website [1]. Those could range from maintenance of gut flora [2], modulation of the immune system [3], regulation of bowel habits and constipation [4] and finally effects on some gastro-intestinal infections [5].

Although the number of scientific papers is certainly large, most of them are related to in vitro and in vivo experiments, with some human clinical trials done on cohorts^[10][11][12] and with daily consumption of 40-100 billions of probiotic L. casei shirota [6], far above the single bottle concentration of approximately 6 billion.

• Nutrition Facts

Standard Yakult contains 18g of sugar for every 100g, but comes in 65 mL bottles. This concentration is higher than the level defined as “HIGH” by the UK Food Standards Agency (described for concentrations of sugar above 15g per 100g)[7]. As a comparison Coca-Cola and orange juices are in the range of 10g of sugar per 100g, but with a serving size usually higher than 250 ml the total sugar quantity is higher. Based on the content of milk protein (1.4 g per 100 mL [8]), it is not classified as a flavoured fermented milk of the Codex Standard for Fermented Milks. However, based on the existence of many products like Yakult in the world market, a new category is going to be established into the current Codex Standard for Fermented Milks.

Through Nutrient profiling guidelines, current health claim regulation in European Union may forbid the use of health claim on food products that are nutritionally unbalanced, but dairy products and probiotic drinks are likely to be considered as favorable carrier because their health benefits outweigh the fact they might be high in one of the designated 'unhealthy' ingredients [9].

The Pythagoras tree is a plane fractalPythagoras because each triple of touching squares encloses a right triangle, in a configuration traditionally used to depict the Pythagorean theorem. constructed from squares. It is named after

If the largest square has a size of 1×1, the entire Pythagoras tree fits snugly inside a box of size 6×4. The finer details of the tree resemble the Lévy C curve.

Construction

The construction of the Pythagoras tree begins with a square. Upon this square are constructed two squares, each scaled down by a linear factor of ½√2, such that the corners of the squares coincide pairwise. The same procedure is then applied recursively to the two smaller squares, ad infinitum. The illustration below shows the first few iterations in the construction process.

Order 0	Order 1	Order 2	Order 3

Area

Iteration n in the construction adds 2ⁿ squares of size (½√2)ⁿ, for a total area of 1. Thus the area of the tree might seem to grow without bound in the limit n→∞. However, some of the squares overlap starting at the order 5 iteration, and the tree actually has a finite area because it fits inside a 6×4 box.

It can be shown easily that the area A of the Pythagoras tree must be in the range 5 < A <>A.

Uses

It is possible that the Pythagoras tree would make very useful fractal antennas with only minor tweaking. This assumption is based on its very high Hausdorff dimension

Diamphidia or Bushman arrow-poison beetle, is an African genus of beetles belonging to the Colorado potato beetle family of Chrysomelidae, the larvae and pupae of which hold a toxic principle used by Bushmen as an arrow poison.^[1][2]

Diamphidia nigro-ornata

Discovery

The Swedish explorer, Hendrik Jacob Wikar who travelled in Southern Africa in 1773-1779 seems to have been the first to report on the "poisonous worms", but Hans Schinz was the first scientist to give a detailed description of the process by which poison was used by the Bushmen.

Species

Species in the genus Diamphidia include:

• Diamphidia nigro-ornata Stål
• Diamphidia femoralis Gerstaecker
• Diamphidia vittatipennis

This section is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding this section.

Ecology

Diamphidia nigro-ornata larva

Diamphidia nigro-ornata cocoon

Feeding habits

The adults and larvae of Diamphidia nigro-ornata feed on Commiphora angolensis Engler, while Diamphidia vittatipennis use Commiphora africana (A.Rich.) Engler as a food plant.

Life cycle

Adult females of Diamphidia femoralis Gerstaecker and Diamphidia nigro-ornata Stål lay their eggs on the stems of Commiphora species and coat the eggs with their faeces which harden into a protective covering. As the larval instars develop, the pellets of their own faeces remain attached to their backs and posteriors.^[3] The final instar sheds this faecal coat when entering the soil to pupate. The same behaviour is found in Blepharida, a Flea Beetle and Polyclada, the African Leaf Beetle.^[3] The Diamphidia larvae burrow down for a depth of up to 1 metre in the sand under the food plant, where they may lie dormant for several years before going through a very rapid pupal phase.

Parasites

Diamphidia is parasitised by a carabid Lebistina beetle, the larva of which attaches itself to a mature Diamphidia larva, clinging to it until the Diamphidia has formed its cocoon, enclosing both host and parasite, and then feeding on its host's soft tissue.

Toxicology

The Lebistina larvae are more toxic than their hosts and are preferred by San hunters for arrow poison.^[1]

Diamphotoxin, the poisonous principle in Diamphidia is a highly labile, low molecular weight compound which is bound to a protein protecting it from inactivation. It causes an increased permeability of cell walls, which, while not affecting normal ionic flow between cells, allows easy access to all small ions, thereby fatally disrupting normal cellular ionic levels.Although it has no neurotoxic effect, it produces a lethal haemolytic effect, and may reduce haemoglobin levels by as much as 75%, leading to haemoglobinuria.

This delay has become more apparent and more irritating during the continuing financial crisis, as consumers seek two basics: safety and yield. (Yields on these savings accounts have tended to be higher than those on money-market accounts.)

But in a remarkably interconnected, instantaneous world, where a debit-card purchase shows up in our bank accounts right away, it's equally remarkable that online transfers can be so slow.

Here's the hitch: Funds transferred between two different banks or a bank and a brokerage firm aren't really sent "online" in the way we have come to expect. Instead, these large transfers move in steps. Banks have slowed down the process further to reduce the chance of fraud, even though such fraud is fairly rare. (Years ago, Congress forced banks to speed up the clearing of checks and the availability of deposits, but it hasn't addressed electronic payments.)

You may have seen this when you tried to move money to or from a brokerage account. I ran into it most recently when I went to my ING Direct savings account first thing on a Monday morning to transfer money for a new car to my Bank of America checking account. While it showed up as "pending" on Wednesday, it wasn't mine to spend until Thursday.

What happens during that time? ING sends transactions in batches during the day to an automated clearinghouse, which sorts them and moves them to the receiving bank in a matter of two to four hours, according to Arkadi Kuhlmann, chief executive officer of ING Direct USA, a unit of ING Groep NV, and Elliott C. McEntee, chief executive of Nacha, the Electronic Payments Association, a not-for-profit group that oversees the automated clearinghouses.

In many cases, the receiving bank gets the transfer the same day. Under rules established by Nacha, money that moves on Monday should be available by the end of Tuesday. If the transfer slips to early Tuesday morning, the money should be available first thing Wednesday morning.

Here's what you can do if you want to transfer money between institutions:

• Plan ahead and send transfers early in the day to have a better chance of a faster transaction.
• Ironically, you can move your money faster with an old-fashioned paper check. See if your money-market account offers check-writing privileges, or open a small checking account at the same bank as your online account. Transfers within the same bank usually happen the same day.
• If the transactions take longer than two business days, complain to the bank where the transfer originated. Nacha doesn't regulate how long a bank can hold onto a deposit "pulled" from another bank to be sure the funds are there. But it does have rules, and can assess fines, if funds "pushed" from another bank aren't credited quickly.
• Hang on. Europe already has a much faster system, and systems to speed up the process here are under development, though they won't be ready for at least a couple of years.