Snooping Around

Unicorns are such pure, beautiful and mysterious creatures. These mythical horses with a single spiraling horn protruding from the forehead have continuously populated legends and magical myths all over the world. Everything has been said about them. Somebody says there’s a strange healing power enclosed in the horn, others say they can actually fly without having wings. Everybody says they’re immortal. When the cultural beliefs about the magical creature were exploding , a “unicorn horn” was literally worth 10 times its weight in gold. Pharmacies in London sold powdered unicorn horn as late as 1741. The unicorn of the Lascaux Caves, France But despite being very well known, nobody has actually seen a living one grazing on the neighbors’ lawn. These magical horses have been discussed in religious texts, travel observations, and even ancient academic papers. But the real question is: Did unicorns, at one point in time, actually exist? And If they didn’t, where did the l...

Males and females are completely different, that’s for sure! But have you ever wondered why the classical symbols the genders are drawn like they are. These two little symbols, despite being very simple and recognizable, have a lot of meaning and correlations with planets and metals. Both these associations started at the beginning of civilization. The ancients, after observing how planets and stars, like the Sun, were moving across the universe,  they found out there was a causal relationship between those movements and corresponding changes in events on our planet. Venus (on the left) and Mars (on the right) Logically, then, ancient scholars began to study heavenly bodies in order to predict future. They also started to associate different planets with their gods. The most common are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Zeus (Jupiter) and Cronus (Saturn). Each planet, along with the respective god, was also associated with a particular metal. For example, the Sun (Helios) was associ...

Ouch…It hurts! Very common exclamation for most of us. But what if you could hear a plant saying this? Well, you won’t believe that but plants suffer everyday.  Simply we are not able to hear them. Yesterday I was minding my own business when, all of a sudden, I started hearing a noise out of the window. There were two gardeners cutting the grass. In my opinion there’s nothing better than catching a whiff of freshly cut grass. For us it could be quite pleasant. But for the grass that smell is pure horror. The smell we associate with freshly cut grass is actually a chemical distress call used by plants to beg nearby critters to save them from attack. If you could be able to hear these call, it would be a horrifying scream.  After all, when there’s a threat, whether it's a lawnmower or a hungry caterpillar, plants can't run away. They must fight where they stand. And that is exactly what they do. In  order to protect themselves, plants employ a gust of molec...

Nature can be very mysterious and The Fascinating Story of the Exploding Toads and The Clever Crows is the perfect example. Maybe, if this is the first time you've ever heard of this, you’d probably think I’m going to talk about a fairy tale. Interesting, but simply a funny story. And maybe with some kind of moral in the end. Believe me, this actually happened. When I first heard of it, I was extremely surprised. Now let’s go back in the spring of 2005, shall we? In Hamburg (Germany) a documented film about the phenomenon reported this: About 1.000 dead toads were discovered lying around the edges. Their bodies appeared to have exploded. Eye-witnesses said they swelled up to about three-and-a-half times their normal size and then simply burst. And they burst with such an explosive force that their entrails were blown over several square meters. As you just read, toads randomly began exploding. Spewing guts, blood and skin for nearly a yard in every direction. For s...

When we were kids, there was that day when our parents let us have a look at a dusty collection of historic old, yellowed newspapers. The Moon landing, political victories that started the great history of our own country and many more pillars of history, now sitting on bookshelves or hidden in trunks. These newspapers are fascinating artifacts documenting history, from remarkable moments to daily news. Unfortunately, these ancient relics are so hard to read due to the yellowed, brown color and fading print. So one day I asked myself: why does this happen? Is there any way to prevent this from happening? Let’s start with the invention of paper. It’s thought that paper was invented around 100 BC in China. Originally made from wet hemp that was, then, replaced with pulp, tree bark, bamboo and other plant fibers. Paper soon spread across Asia, first only being used for official and important documents, but as the process became more efficient and cheaper, it became far more com...

Welcome to the Random Room. This time I felt like doing some kind of Random facts about ... Everything. In fact, here you will find fun and interesting facts, but without a specific topic. The Random Room could talk about everything. Maybe, while reading one of these curious facts, you'll find a detail that will surprise you, will make you laugh or say "I didn't know this". I hope my idea will let you discover even more the strange wonders of the world. The password to this new section is simple: Learn Interesting Facts Everyday (aka L.I.F.E. - yes, I did this on purpose). To seed or not to seed.... 1. When Helium is cooled to almost absolute zero (-273°C), the  lowest temperature possible, it becomes a liquid with surprising  properties: it flows against gravity and will start running up and over the lip of a glass container. 2. If you plant an apple seed, it is almost guaranteed to grow a tree of a different type of apple. 3. The average person ...