Informative Facts

Facts About Gabon Nuts

July 22, 2019 By admin Leave a Comment

Gabon nuts are tropical fruits grown on Gabon tree, scientifically known as Coula edulis which belongs to the Olacaceae plant family. These nuts are found natively in the tropical regions of western Africa. Gabon nuts have good nutritional value and a lot of health benefits. They are much similar to walnuts in shape and size but are not related. Because of the similar physical characteristics they share with walnuts, Gabon nuts are also sometimes called African walnuts or Black Walnuts owing to their dark color.

Gabon nuts are much rare then other nut species. They have thick shells which makes germination difficult and as such these nuts are not so commonly found outside their native habitat.

They are usually found in the tropical rainforests of Western Africa, typically in Gabon, Sierra Leone, Angola, Congo, Cameroon and Nigeria.

Each nut is about 3-4 cm in length and 0.5-0.6 cm in width. Gabon nuts have a taste similar to chestnuts and hazelnuts.

The nuts grow on the trees from August to January. During this period the nuts are plucked off for consumption by humans and animals like chimpanzees.

Gabon nuts are either eaten raw, cooked or boiled. Though it’s better to not boil them as they lose some nutritional and health value when boiled. Cooking them or eating them raw is more healthy.

They are also used as a flavoring especially in desserts and meat dishes. The nuts are also sometimes ground into flour.

Gabon nuts are also very rich in oil which is extracted and used in making cooking oil.

A Gabon nut contains 50% oil of which 87% is the fatty oleic acid. Protein content of the nut ranges between 8.96 and 21.80 percent. Raw nuts have the highest protein concentration. Boiling or cooking can result in some protein loss, hence it’s better to consume them raw to gain maximum protein energy.

These nuts have a lot of health benefits. The nuts are rich in proteins, vitamins, healthy fatty acids, anti-oxidants and fiber. Each nut has an abundance of vitamins such as Vitamins E, B1, B6, B7 ,B9.

Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids present in the nut can improve heart health by reducing bad cholesterol, blood pressure. They also promote mental health, decrease memory loss and help in reducing liver fat.

Phytosterols and Omega-3 fatty acids present in the nuts can reduce the risk of getting cancer.

Research shows that the nuts also exhibit anti-inflammatory properties and can reduce the risk of chronic inflammation.

They also have a high fiber content which helps aid digestion.

Vitamin E present in Gabon nuts helps fight infections. Other Vitamins present like Vitamin B1 promotes healthy growth, Vitamin B6 keep the immune system strong, Vitamin B7 is important for strong hair and nerve health, Vitamin B9 helps in reducing the risk of birth defects.

Gabon nuts are also believed to increase male fertility by increasing the sperm count in males.

Facts About Biafo Glacier

June 18, 2019 By admin 121 Comments

Biafo Glacier is the third largest glacier outside the world’s polar regions. This large river of ice is located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. The glacier lies inside the Karakoram mountain range. Biafo glacier meets the Hispar glacier at a height of 5128m.

Biafo Glacier
Author: BlackZero_007 / (CC BY 2.0)

Biafo was explored for the first time in 1892 by Sir Martin Conway, a British mountaineer.

The glacier has a total length of about 67km.

The area of the glacier is about 853km². More than 70% of the glacier’s total area is made up of snow and ice.

Together with the Hispar glacier which is 49km long, the two glaciers form a long highway of ice more than 100km long.

Author: Yousaf Feroz Gill / (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Unlike, other glaciers of the Karakoram the Biafo’s main source of ice is from snowfall rather than avalanches.

The glacier collects a lot of snow each year. However, due to global warming and climate change, more snow and ice is melted and lost than is collected by the glacier.

The Biafo-Hispar highway has significant historical importance too. In ancient times the route served as an important path for traders as well as invading armies who used the path to attack adversaries located at the other end of the highway. In ancient times warriors from Nagar in the west used to cross this route to attack the Baltitstan Kingdom in the east.

The area also has some wild animals. These include the Himalayan Bear, Siberian Ibex, Mountain Goat(Markhor) and Snow Leopards.

Snow Lake, located at Biafo-Hispar junction
Author: Dave Hancock, Fieldtouring.com / (CC BY-SA 2.5)

At the Hispar Pass, the place where Biafo ends and Hispar glacier starts, there’s a large body of ice called the snow lake.

Snow Lake is about 16m wide and has a total area of about 77km². The ice in the lake has a depth of more than 1.6km, and is considered one of the largest ice caps in the non-polar regions of the world.

Some people claim to have seen footprints of the cryptid Yeti, on the sufrace of the Snow Lake.

Biafo glacier is covered in moraines, boulders and has a lot of crevasses which makes trekking very difficult.

Facts About Arafura Sea

June 11, 2019 By admin Leave a Comment

The Arafura Sea is in a continental shelf area located between western New Guinea and the northern part of Australia. Arafura Shelf appears to have been a low-relief land surface that had an used to have a desert like climate.To the north, it is bordered by the Tertiary collision zone between the Australian craton and the northern island arc. To the south the sea adjoins the stable Australian craton. The sea is also a host for numerous Indonesian islands in the region. Towards the east of the Arafura Sea forms a stable continental shelf which has suffered a little from some intense compressional events. Episodes of rifting and basin formation for the Arafura sea are recorded to be in Paleozoic and Mesozoic sequences.

The following are a few facts about the Arafura sea:

Sea levels were so low during the last glacial maximum that the Arafura Shelf, the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the Torres Strait formed a large land bridge that connected Australia and New Guinea.
During the time of that land bridge themigration of humans from Asia into Australia had a noticeable increase.
The Arafura Sea is a generally shallow sea in the western Pacific Ocean that occupies about 250,000 square miles between the north coast of Australia, also known as the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the south coast of New Guinea.
According to the IHO, or theInternational Hydrographic Organization, the Arafura Sea is defined as being one of the waters of the East Indian Archipelago.
The Arafura sea has various depths with the more shallow of those depths being between 165 to 260 feet, deepening as is goes towards the western edge, this is the point where coral reefs have grown at depths close to 2,000 feet.
The oceans depth of the Arafura Shelf exhibits depths of between 160 and 260 ft, but the deeper parts which can go down as far as 1,970 ft can occur at the edges.
The saltiness of the Arafura Sea annually ranges from 34.2-34.8 in the deeper parts to the north to 34.2 to 35.0 on the Arafura Shelf.
The Arafura Sea yields a little under 4 million metric tons of seafood annually.
With marine ecosystems and fish stocks in a steady decline, the Arafura Sea stands out as one of the most abundant places to fish in the world.

An island in the Arafura Sea
Author: SuWiRe / (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Arafura Sea holds many mysteries and there are still issues with illegal fishing going on. If this illegal trend continues, the numerous local communities who surround and depend on the Arafura Sea will face a number of obstacles in order to sustain their livelihoods and quality of life. Increasing their economic growth while maintaining an optimum environment quality are the primary challenges that need to be overcome for this region to grow economically. Along with the illegal fishing in the area there are threats of pollution being dumped into the sea from nearby areas. Luckily there is already a controversy from the local people trying to save their economy and to prevent the pollution of the Arafura sea.

History of Tea Bags

June 2, 2019 By admin 1 Comment

If you’re a tea person you would know how important tea bags are and how they’ve made our lives so much easier. Whether we are at work or hanging out or at home, us tea lovers just can’t live without tea. Tea bags make the task of brewing tea a lot easier. Instead of boiling the tea in a pot all we do is just dip the tea bag in a cup of hot water(add a little milk too if we like it that way) and we’re good to go. But of course it wasn’t always like this. Tea bags were just invented over a 100 years ago and that too by accident.

Different types of tea in teabags.
Author: André Karwath / (CC BY-SA 2.5)

The story of how tea bags were invented goes like this:

In 1904, Thomas Sullivan a tea merchant from New York sent some samples to his clients. The samples Thomas sent were wrapped in pouches of silk. His clients instead of opening them up just dipped the pouches directly into hot water and brewed the tea. And this is how tea bags were born.

Seeing the popularity of his tea bags and customer feedback, Sullivan developed sachets made out of gauze, the first purpose-made tea bags. Commercial production of tea bags started in the 1920s, and soon the bags became popular all over the United States.

Up until the early 1940s tea bags resembled small round sacks. The modern day rectangular tea bags that we use today were not invented until 1944.

Evolution of Lipton’s Tea Bags
Image: Unilever

Some Facts About Tea Bags:

Each Tea Bag contains about 3g of tea.

In each teabag of Litpon’s Black Tea, the tea contains about 25mg of Potassium.

Teabags were adopted by the British much later than the Americans. Tetley was the first company to introduce tea bags in UK.

Tetley started commercial production of teabags in Britain in 1953, about 30 years later than the Americans did.

Tea bags are made up of either filter-paper,nylon or food grade PVC(plastic).

Some artists use on teabag papers to create different shapes of art. This practice has become known as teabag folding or teabag origami.

Because Teabags are not airtight, the tea loses flavor over time. So it’s best to use them as quickly as possible once the packing containing the teabags is opened.

Tea bag Folding, also known as Tea bag Origami
Author: Sherry Venegas/Flickr / (CC BY 2.0)

5 Strange and Interesting Facts

May 29, 2019 By admin Leave a Comment

We love to write informative stuff for you guys and try to make sure that you gain knowledge from every new post we create. Today, i share with you some more facts. Hope you enjoy reading this article. Please, do share your views in the comments. Thank You!

1. There’s a parrot named Puck, listed in the Guinness World Book of Records as “The bird with the largest vocabulary in the world” with a vocabulary of 1728 words.

A budgie in the wild
Image: Laurie Boyle/Flickr / (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Puck was a budgerigar parrot, also known as a budgie. In America, they are commonly called parakeets. In 1995, Puck was introduced into the Guinness Book of World Records for his highly impressive vocabulary. From then on, he was recognized as the “bird that knew over 1728 words”. Puck became a star, and Guinness Book took part in interviews in order to answer questions about the talented bird.

To prove his worth, Puck was tested for a six month period. 21 different volunteers took turns observing the bird speaking different words and creating his own phrases. The volunteers wrote down the words that Puck said, proving that he had a very developed vocabulary.

The bird’s main quality was that he could create his own sentences out of the words in his vocabulary. Puck had a very developed sense of his surroundings and could react to them. On one Christmas morning, Puck said, “It’s Christmas. That’s what’s happening. That’s what it’s all about. I love Pucky. I love everyone” almost as if he was in the Christmas spirit as well.

After being accepted into the Guinness Book of World Records, puck died from a gonadal tumor on August 25th, 1994. The parakeet was only five years old. Puck appeared in the Guinness Books from 1995 to 1998, left out from 1999 to 2002, and then appeared again in 2003 and 2004. The little bird lived a short life, but one that was very interesting, and he had gained recognition all over the world for his talent.

2. Koreans Believe, Sleeping in a Closed Room with an Electric Fan Turned on can Cause Death.

In South Korea, there is a common and incorrect belief that sleeping with an electric fan in a closed room can cause hypothermia and result in death. The phenomena is known as ‘fan death’. According to the Korean government, “In some cases, a fan turned on too long can cause death from suffocation, hypothermia, or fire from overheating.”

Hypothermia is the condition in which the temperature of the human body drops below the normal required for metabolism and other bodily functions i.e 35.0 °C.

In 2006, the Korea Consumer Protection Board issued a public safety message claiming that, oxygen deprivation from the use of electric fans and air conditioners in closed rooms was one of the five most common summer accidents or injuries according to their collected data.

The Board in its message warned people to set timers to their fans and keep their room doors open. And if possible change the wind direction of the fan.

Dr. Yeon Dong-su, a dean at Kwandong University says that,

It doesn’t matter so much about the temperature of the room, If it is completely sealed, then in the current of an electric fan, the temperature can drop low enough to cause a person to die of hypothermia.

3. A Bosnian man faked his own death just to see who would come to his funeral. Only his mother showed up.

According to Reuters News Service, Amir Vehabovic, a forty five year old Bosnian man tried to find out how well-liked he was by his friends and family in a most unusual way: he faked his own death and arranged his own funeral service just to see who would be there. In order to truly gauge his popularity, he found a hiding place near the plot where his empty coffin was to be buried so that he would be able to watch the crowd of people that he imagined would come to say their final goodbyes without anyone seeing him.

On the day of this staged funeral, Mr.Vehabovic was greatly disappointed to see that the only person who showed up for the service and burial was his own mother. Still, he must have had some idea that no one showing up was one of the most likely outcomes of this somewhat self-centered plan.

This is, after all, a man who would stage his own death at the risk of breaking his mother’s heart. Angered by what he saw as their great betrayal, Mr. Vehabovic took up the pen in order to denounce all of his former friends in an open letter, “I paid alot of money to get a fake death certificate and bribe undertakers to deliver an empty coffin,” he wrote, ”I really thought more of you, my so-called friends, would turn up to show your last respects. It just goes to show who you can really count on.”

There is no word as of yet whether Bosnian authorities had brought any charges against Amir Vehabovic for engaging in forgery and bribery. Perhaps the most fitting punishment for such a person is that they should have to live out the rest of their days with only themselves as company. No doubt most of Mr. Vehabovic’s former friends would agree.

4. There was a magazine called Continuum that promoted AIDS denialism that went out of print because both of the editors died of AIDS

To most of us, the link between HIV and AIDS is painstakingly obvious. The abundance of evidence to support that fact is pretty much everything anybody needs to understand how HIV and AIDS link together.

In December 1992 however Jody Wells, an HIV sufferer himself, launched Continuum, a magazine that promoted AIDS denialism and denied the link between HIV and AIDS.

Continuum was known for its unorthodox articles about the HIV/AIDS epidemic, AIDS denialism, numerous pseudo-sciences and alternative theories. It ceased publication in 2001 however, when both its editors died from AIDS.

Wells was a firm believer that no link existed between HIV and full blown AIDS, instead attributing the onset of AIDS to numerous other factors including; a person’s sex life, recreational and pharmaceutical drug use, diet and, perhaps most controversially, the drugs used in the treatment of the HIV virus.

Ironically, on 26th August 1995 Jody Wells died from PCP, a violent form of pneumonia that since the outbreak of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, has been very closely linked with HIV and the onset of AIDS. After Wells’ death Huw Christie Williams took over as chief editor until his death in 2001 from Kaposi’s sarcoma, another AIDS attributing condition.

AIDS denialism is a dangerous ideology that is attributed to the deaths of nearly 300,000 people in South Africa alone, after the adoption of the idea by the government of Thabo Mbeki. Whilst alternative medicine, differing theory and peer review should be explored and maintained to ensure scientist combat this hostile disease as effectively as possible, outright denial of facts spanning numerous sciences is simply irresponsible.

With both editors gone and debts of over £14,000, the publication ceased in 2001 and began releasing online material bimonthly , then seasonally until it finally ceased for good a short time later. Continuum has since faded into the history that of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, with Immunity Resource Foundation hosting its complete works on an internet database, a database housing upwards of 12,000 similar documents.

5. 1 in 5 Greenlanders attempt suicide once in their lifetime.

Suicide is very prevalent in Greenland. According to government reports, 1 out of every 5 Greenlanders attempt suicide at some time in their lives. Different schemes have been used to try and combat this including education and roadside posters.

The rate of suicides has been increasing for quite some time and was particularly high during the 1990s with 107 per 100,000 people. In 2010, the Government revealed the heartbreaking statistic that one suicide occurs per week in the country.

An article published by a psychiatry journal in 2009 concluded that a total of 1351 suicides happened in Greenland between 1968-2002. The suicides seemed to be most common in summer and dropped in winter. Interestingly, suicides in Northern Greenland are higher than those in the south.

Correlating with worldwide trends, suicide rates for men exceed those of women and rates are most common among younger men between the ages of 15-24. Unlike in most European countries, there is a negative correlation between suicide rate and age in Greenland.

There seems to be several factors which contribute to Greenland’s high rate of suicide including a dependency on alcohol, relationship problems and dysfunctional families. The rationale for an increase in suicides during the summer is the relentless insomnia which is caused by the bright sunlight. If the body is deprived of the thing that makes it function the most, sleep, then people are more prone to irrational decisions including suicide, particularly if there is already a significant amount of stress in their life.

Another reason is because of the culture clash with traditional and western cultures which could lead to isolation and a feeling in some people as if they don’t belong in such an environment.

The methods which are used to commit suicide are almost always violent (95%). Hanging (45%) and shooting (37%) are the 2 most common methods of a person taking their life. Other life-ending methods such as: jumping from heights, cutting with sharp instruments, drowning and overdosing on drugs do occur, but much less frequently.

Cool and Interesting Facts About the Andromeda Galaxy

May 13, 2019 By admin 1 Comment

For centuries it was believed that Andromeda is part of our Milky Way. It was only in the early 20th century when it was discovered that Andromeda was in fact, a separate galaxy. Scientists now know that it is the largest and brightest galaxy in the sky. It is also the most remote object visible to the naked eye. Andromeda is the most nearest galaxy to our Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way contains our planet earth and the rest of the solar system.

The Andromeda Galaxy
Author: Kees Scherer/Flickr

Andromeda is spiral shaped and one of the most massive galaxies in our part of the universe.

In moderately dark skies the galaxy is visible as an elongated, hazy patch, slightly brighter in the center, and fading away on the edges until it blends into the sky’s background.

Andromeda gets its name from the Andromeda Constellation. The galaxy is located near one of the edges of this constellation and hence it was named the Andromeda Galaxy. The word Andromeda is actually a name from Greek mythology. According to Greek legends, Andromeda was a Princess and the daughter of King Cepheus and his Queen Cassiopeia.

The Andromeda Constellation. The object labelled M31 is the Andromeda Galaxy, located at one of the constellation’s edges.
Author: Keilana (derived from work of Roberto Mura) / (CC BY-SA 3.0)

This Galaxy was first described in 964 by Abdul Rahman Sufi, a Muslim astronomer from Persia. Abdul Rahman mentioned the galaxy in his book called the “Book of Fixed Stars”. He described the Andromeda as a “nebulous smear”.

The Andromeda is also known as the Messier 31 or M31. The name comes from Charles Messier, a French astronomer who documented the Galaxy in his catalog called “Catalogue of Nebulae and Star Clusters”, published in 1771. The number 31 actually signifies that it was the 31st object on Messier’s list of astronomical objects.

Occasionally, it is also known as the NGC 224. This designation came from the New General Catalogue (NGC), a detailed list of astronomical objects documented by British astronomer, John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888.

The first ever photograph of the Andromeda Galaxy

Up until the early 20th century, astronomers believed, Andromeda was a part of the Milky Way. This theory was proven wrong in 1920 when American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble determined conclusively that Andromeda was not part of the Milky Way, and a separate galaxy far away from the Milky Way.

The first photograph of the galaxy was taken in 1887 by Issac Roberts, a Welsh astronomer

The total mass of the Andromeda is estimated to be about 1.8×10⁴²kg making it one of the biggest galaxies in our local part of the universe.

Andromeda observed in the night sky.
Author: Joshua Tree / (CC BY 2.0)

Andromeda is gigantic. Scientists estimate the total number of stars in the galaxy to be around 1 trillion. This is about twice the number of stars estimated to be in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Andromeda Galaxy is at a distance of 2.2 million light years away from earth and hence the most remote object one can observe with the naked eye. This means that if we observe the Andromeda with our eye at any particular time, the bright light coming from the galaxy and reaching our eyes is actually 2.2 million years old. So, what we observe of Andromeda at any given moment with our eye actually happened or took place 2.2 million years ago. Amazing, isn’t it?

Scientists say that Andromeda was formed about 10 billion years ago from the collision and merger of smaller galaxies.

Colorful rings inside the Galaxy
Courtesy: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/B. Schulz (NHSC)

Andromeda Galaxy has a diameter of about 220,000 light-years, which means if someone travels at the speed of light, it would take 220,000 years for them to travel from one edge of the galaxy to another.

Astronomers believe that the Andromeda has at least 2 Spiral Arms. Spiral arms are areas in a galaxy with strong star formation and are called spiral because of the spiral shape they take on, due to the galaxy rotating on its own axis.

Andromeda is also enveloped in a massive halo of gas and it is estimated that the halo contains half the mass of the stars in the Andromeda itself. Halos are giant spheres encircling a galaxy. They may contain old stars, hot gases or even dark matter. Halos play an important part in star formation in galaxies, controlling the rate at which new stars form.

Andromeda’s spirals can be seen quite clearly in this photo
Courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Andromeda’s halo is invisible and dark. It can’t be seen when observing the galaxy. Scientists were only able to discover the halo after observing bright objects in the galaxy behind the halo and observing changes in light patterns due to the halo. This halo is believed to contain gases and an abundance of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.

Although, the galaxy is so huge and bright that it can be seen anytime of the year, the best time to get a good view is during autumn nights, when the sky is dark and clear.

The Andromeda Galaxy is approaching the Milky Way at a speed of 110km/s. Scientists believe that our Milky Way and the Andromeda will collide after 4 billion years. Imagine that!

Andromeda Galaxy
Author: Stephen Rahn/Flickr

Moreover, the Andromeda also has 14 dwarf or satellite galaxies. These galaxies are heavily influenced by interactions with their nearby parent galaxies and are constantly orbiting around them. M32 and M110 are Andromeda’s most prominent satellite galaxies.

The Andromeda is estimated to have at least 35 black-holes, one of which is at the core or nuclei of the Galaxy. This black-hole at the center has a mass of about 2×10³⁸ kg, which is at least 100 million times more than the mass of our Sun.

At least 450-460 globular clusters orbit the Andromeda. Globular clusters are spherical clusters of mostly old stars that orbit their nearby larger galaxy. The spherical shape of these clusters is due to gravity binding them together. Typically, these are found in the outer regions of a galaxy, specifically the halo region.

Andromeda Galaxy
Author: Michael S Adler / (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Although it’s the largest galaxy in our part of the universe, the Andromeda Galaxy contains less dark matter than our Milky Way.

For now much of what we know about the Andromeda is still a mystery. Scientists still have a lot to discover about this galaxy which is so much similar to our Milky Way. Some say the Andromeda may even have planets like our Milky Way. And who knows, maybe these yet to be discovered planets support life like our Earth does. If this were true, maybe one day we’ll get to meet some friendly or not so friendly aliens who might actually even look like us and have the same DNA as humans.