Hari’s Astronomy Blog

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Entries for June, 2008

Top 3 deadliest snake in world

1) Fierce Snake or Inland Taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus ), Australia. The most toxic venom of any snake. Maximum yield recorded (for one bite) is 110mg. That would porbably be enough to kill over 100 people or 250,000 mice. With an LD50 of 0.01 mg/kg, it is about 10 times as venomous as a Mojave rattlesnake [...]

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Frog Like baby

On 2006, this bizarre-looking baby was born in Charikot, the headquarters of Dolakha district, attracting a huge number of onlookers to witness the astonishing sight.
The neck-less baby with its head almost totally sunk into the upper part of the body and with extraordinarily large eyeballs literally popping out of the eye-sockets, was born to Nir [...]

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World’s Most Dangerous Airport

Princess Juliana International Airport serves Saint Maarten, the Dutch part of the island of Saint Martin. It is the second busiest airport in the Eastern Caribbean. The airport is famous for its short landing strip — only 2,180 metres/7,152 ft, which is barely enough for heavy jets. Because of this, the planes approach the island [...]

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Quagga: half zebra, half horse (extinct since 1883)

One of Africa’s most famous extinct animals, the quagga was a subspecies of the plains zebra, which was once found in great numbers in South Africa’s Cape Province and the southern part of the Orange Free State. It was distinguished from other zebras by having the usual vivid marks on the front part of the [...]

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Male seahorses can get pregnant

Seahorses reproduce in an unusual way: the male becomes pregnant. Pipefishes and seahorses are the only species in the animal kingdom to which the term “male pregnancy” has been applied.
The male seahorse has a brood pouch in which he carries eggs deposited by the female. The mating pair entwine their tails and the female aligns [...]

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Tyrannosaurus Rex (extinct 65 million years ago)

Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest land carnivores of all time, measuring up to 43.3 feet long, and 16.6 ft tall, with an estimated mass that goes up to 7 tons. Like other tyrannosaurids, Tyrannosaurus was a bipedal carnivore with a massive skull balanced by a long, heavy tail. Relative to the large and [...]

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Erection is possible even after death

A death erection (sometimes referred to as “angel lust”) is a post-mortem erection which occurs when a male individual dies vertically or face-down with the cadaver remaining in this position. During life, the pumping of blood by the heart ensures a relatively even distribution around the blood vessels of the human body. Once this mechanism [...]

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The Moon is moving away from the Earth

The Moon’s orbit (its circular path around the Earth) is indeed getting larger, at a rate of about 3.8 centimeters per year. (The Moon’s orbit has a radius of 384,000 km.) The reason for the increase is that the Moon raises tides on the Earth. Because the side of the Earth that faces the Moon [...]

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Greenland melting

Map of melting in Greenland published by NASA. Credit: NASA/Earth Observatory.
NASA is reporting of new data about the melting in Greenland in 2007. In short: areas at high altitudes (over 1.2 miles above sea level) are experiencing record melting, clocking in at a chilling 150% above average. At lower altitudes, the melting is 30% above [...]

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Most Powerful Supernova

A supernova is the explosion of a star at the end of its life. When this happens, huge amounts of matter and energy are released in the explosion, giving rise to a bright new object in the sky. This start remnant remains visible for a few weeks and then dies away.
Supernova 2005ap shown with four [...]

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