Unbelievable Amazing Facts

[Friendz]

At the time the tower was built many people were shocked by its daring shape. Gustave Eiffel was criticised for the design and accused of trying to create something artistic, or inartistic according to the viewer, without regard to engineering. Eiffel and his engineers, as renowned bridge builders however, understood the importance of wind forces and knew that if they were going to build the tallest structure in the world they had to be certain it would withstand the wind.



Since the beginning of the 20th century, the tower has been used for radio transmission. Until the 1950s, an occasionally modified set of antenna wires ran from the summit to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren and Champ de Mars. They were connected to long-wave transmitters in small bunkers; in 1909, a permanent underground radio centre was built near the south pillar and still exists today. On 20 November 1913 the Paris Observatory, using the Eiffel Tower as an antenna, exchanged sustained wireless signals with the United States Naval Observatory which used an antenna in Arlington, Virginia.

[burakadak]

really unbelievable

[Friendz]

40 Amazing Facts about Sleep


1. The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon. The record holder reported hallucinations, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech and memory and concentration lapses.

2. It's impossible to tell if someone is really awake without close medical supervision. People can take cat naps with their eyes open without even being aware of it.

3. Anything less than five minutes to fall asleep at night means you're sleep deprived. The ideal is between 10 and 15 minutes, meaning you're still tired enough to sleep deeply, but not so exhausted you feel sleepy by day.

4. A new baby typically results in 400-750 hours lost sleep for parents in the first year

5. One of the best predictors of insomnia later in life is the development of bad habits from having sleep disturbed by young children.

6. The continuous brain recordings that led to the discovery of REM (rapid eye-movement) sleep were not done until 1953, partly because the scientists involved were concerned about wasting paper.

7. REM sleep occurs in bursts totalling about 2 hours a night, usually beginning about 90 minutes after falling asleep.

8. Dreams, once thought to occur only during REM sleep, also occur (but to a lesser extent) in non-REM sleep phases. It's possible there may not be a single moment of our sleep when we are actually dreamless.

9. REM dreams are characterised by bizarre plots, but non-REM dreams are repetitive and thought-like, with little imagery obsessively returning to a suspicion you left your mobile phone somewhere, for example.

10. Certain types of eye movements during REM sleep correspond to specific movements in dreams, suggesting at least part of the dreaming process is analagous to watching a film

11. No-one knows for sure if other species dream but some do have sleep cycles similar to humans.

12. Elephants sleep standing up during non-REM sleep, but lie down for REM sleep.

13. Some scientists believe we dream to fix experiences in long-term memory, that is, we dream about things worth remembering. Others reckon we dream about things worth forgetting to eliminate overlapping memories that would otherwise clog up our brains.

14. Dreams may not serve any purpose at all but be merely a meaningless byproduct of two evolutionary adaptations sleep and consciousness.

15. REM sleep may help developing brains mature. Premature babies have 75 per cent REM sleep, 10 per cent more than full-term bubs. Similarly, a newborn kitten puppy rat or hampster experiences only REM sleep, while a newborn guinea pig (which is much more developed at birth) has almost no REM sleep at all.


16. Scientists have not been able to explain a 1998 study showing a bright light shone on the backs of human knees can reset the brain's sleep-wake clock.

17. British Ministry of Defence researchers have been able to reset soldiers' body clocks so they can go without sleep for up to 36 hrs. Tiny optical fibres embedded in special spectacles project a ring of bright white light (with a spectrum identical to a sunrise) around the edge of soldiers' retinas, fooling them into thinking they have just woken up. The system was first used on US pilots during the bombing of Kosovo.

18. Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%.

19. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the Chernobyl nuclear accident have all been attributed to human errors in which sleep-deprivation played a role.

20. The NRMA estimates fatigue is involved in one in 6 fatal road accidents.

21. Exposure to noise at night can suppress immune function even if the sleeper doesn’t wake. Unfamiliar noise, and noise during the first and last two hours of sleep, has the greatest disruptive effect on the sleep cycle.

22. The "natural alarm clock" which enables some people to wake up more or less when they want to is caused by a burst of the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin. Researchers say this reflects an unconscious anticipation of the stress of waking up.

23. Some sleeping tablets, such as barbiturates suppress REM sleep, which can be harmful over a long period.

24. In insomnia following bereavement, sleeping pills can disrupt grieving.

25. Tiny luminous rays from a digital alarm clock can be enough to disrupt the sleep cycle even if you do not fully wake. The light turns off a "neural switch" in the brain, causing levels of a key sleep chemical to decline within minutes.

26. To drop off we must cool off; body temperature and the brain's sleep-wake cycle are closely linked. That's why hot summer nights can cause a restless sleep. The blood flow mechanism that transfers core body heat to the skin works best between 18 and 30 degrees. But later in life, the comfort zone shrinks to between 23 and 25 degrees one reason why older people have more sleep disorders.

27. A night on the grog will help you get to sleep but it will be a light slumber and you won't dream much.

28. After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would when you've slept enough.

29. Humans sleep on average around three hours less than other primates like chimps, rhesus monkeys, squirrel monkeys and baboons, all of whom sleep for 10 hours.

30. Ducks at risk of attack by predators are able to balance the need for sleep and survival, keeping one half of the brain awake while the other slips into sleep mode.

31. Ten per cent of snorers have sleep apnoea, a disorder which causes sufferers to stop breathing up to 300 times a night and significantly increases the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke.

32. Snoring occurs only in non-REM sleep


33. Teenagers need as much sleep as small children (about 10 hrs) while those over 65 need the least of all (about six hours). For the average adult aged 25-55, eight hours is considered optimal

34. Some studies suggest women need up to an hour's extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men.

35. Feeling tired can feel normal after a short time. Those deliberately deprived of sleep for research initially noticed greatly the effects on their alertness, mood and physical performance, but the awareness dropped off after the first few days.

36. Diaries from the pre-electric-light-globe Victorian era show adults slept nine to 10 hours a night with periods of rest changing with the seasons in line with sunrise and sunsets.

37. Most of what we know about sleep we've learned in the past 25 years.

38. As a group, 18 to 24 year-olds deprived of sleep suffer more from impaired performance than older adults.

39. Experts say one of the most alluring sleep distractions is the 24-hour accessibility of the internet.

40. The extra-hour of sleep received when clocks are put back at the start of daylight in Canada has been found to coincide with a fall in the number of road accidents.

[adifadif]

the only life found in the dead sea are slated herring lol

[pcucamp12]

really unbelievable

[Whisky-F]

1. A cough releases an explosive charge of air that moves at speeds up to 60 mph.
2. A fetus acquires fingerprints at the age of three months.
3. A fingernail or toenail takes about 6 months to grow from base to tip.
4. A healthy individual releases 3.5 oz. Of gas in a single flatulent emission, or about 17 oz. In a day.
5. A human being loses an average of 40 to 100 strands of hair a day.
6. A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.
7. A sneeze can exceed the speed of 100 mph.
8. According to german researchers, the risk of heart attack is higher on monday than any other day of the week.
9. According to the kinsey institute, the biggest erect penis on record measures 13 inches. The smallest tops off at 1 3/4 inches.
10. After spending hours working at a computer display, look at a blank piece of white paper. It will probably appear pink.
11. An average human drinks about 16, 000 gallons of water in a lifetime.
12. An average human scalp has 100,000 hairs.
13. An average person uses the bathroom 6 times per day.
14. An individual blood cell takes about 60 seconds to make a complete circuit of the body.
15. Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have only 206 in our bodies.
16. Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his lifetime.
17. Blondes have more hair than dark-haired people.

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[fredc]

some interesting things in this section

[HarL]

wow...its really make my mind open about 90% >.<'

[Mercie]

these are pretty crazy

[Timdeka]

whoa thats cool