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Showing posts from November, 2014

Urban Legends - The Town That’s Been Burning for Over Half a Century

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Surfing on the Internet in search of new mysteries to talk about I found out something very strange. I’ve already talked about the Ringing Rocks County Park . And again today’s weirdness is located in Pennsylvania. What if I tell you there exists a city which has been burning for almost 50 years. And is still burning now.  I was surprised when I first heard about Centralia , a borough (a self-governing municipal entity that is usually smaller than a city) and a near-ghost town in Columbia County. Its population has radically dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to 8 in 2014 , and so is the least-populated municipality in Pennsylvania. But If you look at it, seems a very pleasurable city. So why everybody ran away ? Founded in 1862, Centralia came out because of the booming coal mining industry. Under the town lays a particular type of coal, called Anthracite coal (also known as Black Diamond, a much cooler name), once in high demand for heating homes. This underground mine

Discovery Central - Caffeine

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Awww! That cup of coffee. When you grab it, pouring that dark liquid into your mouth in early morning, you are sure it will help you against sleep. It's commonly known this is caused by caffeine, a chemical widely used for its awakening properties. Caffeine has been used as a drug for thousands of years, both in medicine and in daily life.  There are several plants, cultivated or harvested, that contain this substance, but today caffeine is added to many foods, more than you think. Despite the increase in caffeine use in recent times, many people have little knowledge of the overall effects it has on their bodies. So, let's start with this new "Discovery Central". The word Caffeine derives of course from the world coffee because coffee plants were one the first discovered ones which had a huge amount of it. Caffeine’s chemical name is 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine, based on its formula,  C 8 H 10 N 4 O 2 , and in its pure form caffeine is a very bitter white powder

Random Facts About....Halloween

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Since few days, the scariest night of the year is only a memory. But, even if I'm a little late, I wanna share with you some interesting curiosities about Halloween, the very well known celebration observed in a number of countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. In my country, anyway, this celebration is not widely spread, so people would rather stay at home, watching some scary movies in front of a television than actually dressing up and conquer the street searching for some delicious sweets. Unfortunately, the strange nature of Halloween has captured people’s imaginations for centuries, and led to many superstitions and traditions that last to this day. But with this I'm not saying Halloween is failing. Lots of people still believe and decide to join others for hanging out and having fun. And personally, I have more of a reason to party because my birthday is on the 1st of November. Anyway, let's find out some interestin