10 Amazing Nature Phenomena

These are 10 Amazing Nature Phenomena

10. Ice Circles

An ice disc, ice circle, or ice pan is a natural phenomenon that occurs in slow moving water in cold climates. Ice circles are thin and circular slabs of ice that rotate slowly in the water. It is believed that they form in eddy currents. Ice discs have most frequently been observed in Scandinavia and North America, but they are occasionally recorded as far south as England and Wales. 

9. Red Tides

Red tide is a common name for a phenomenon known as an algal bloom (large concentrations of aquatic microorganisms) when it is caused by a few species of dinoflagellates and the bloom takes on a red or brown color. Red tides are events in which estuarine, marine, or fresh water algae accumulate rapidly in the water column, resulting in coloration of the surface water. It is usually found in coastal areas.

These algae, known as phytoplankton, are single-celled protists, plant-like organisms that can form dense, visible patches near the water's surface. Certain species of phytoplankton, dinoflagellates, contain photosynthetic pigments that vary in color from green to brown to red.

8. Columnar Basalt

During the cooling of a thick lava flow, contractional joints or fractures form. If a flow cools relatively rapidly, significant contraction forces build up. While a flow can shrink in the vertical dimension without fracturing, it can't easily accommodate shrinking in the horizontal direction unless cracks form; the extensive fracture network that develops results in the formation of columns. The topology of the lateral shapes of these columns can broadly be classed as a random cellular network. These structures are predominantly hexagonal in cross-section, but polygons with three to twelve or more sides can be observed. The size of the columns depends loosely on the rate of cooling; very rapid cooling may result in very small (<1 cm diameter) columns, while slow cooling is more likely to produce large columns.

7. Sun Dogs

A sun dog or sundog, also called a mock sun or a phantom sun, is an atmospheric phenomenon that creates bright spots of light in the sky, often on a luminous ring or halo on either side of the sun.

Sundogs may appear as a colored patch of light to the left or right of the sun, 22° distant and at the same distance above the horizon as the sun, and in ice halos. They can be seen anywhere in the world during any season, but they are not always obvious or bright. Sundogs are best seen and are most conspicuous when the sun is low.

6. Moeraki Boulders

The Moeraki Boulders are unusually large and spherical boulders lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach on the wave cut Otago coast of New Zealand between Moeraki and Hampden. They occur scattered either as isolated or clusters of boulders within a stretch of beach where they have been protected in a scientific reserve. The erosion by wave action of mudstone, comprising local bedrock and landslides, frequently exposes embedded isolated boulders. These boulders are grey-colored septarian concretions, which have been exhumed from the mudstone enclosing them and concentrated on the beach by coastal erosion.

5. Penitentes

Penitentes, or nieves penitentes (Spanish for "penitente-shaped snows"), are a snow formation found at high altitudes. They take the form of tall thin blades of hardened snow, or ice, closely spaced with the blades oriented towards the general direction of the sun. Penitentes can be as tall as a person.

4. Light Pillars

A light pillar is a visual phenomenon created by the reflection of light from ice crystals with near horizontal parallel planar surfaces. The light can come from the Sun (usually at or low to the horizon) in which case the phenomenon is called a sun pillar or solar pillar. It can also come from the Moon or from terrestrial sources such as streetlights.

3. Catatumbo lightning

The Catatumbo Lightning is an atmospheric phenomenon in Venezuela. It occurs only over the mouth of the Catatumbo River where it empties into Lake Maracaibo. The frequent, powerful flashes of lightning over this relatively small area are considered to be the world's largest single generator of tropospheric ozone, that is, ozone that does not replenish the stratospheric ozone layer.

It originates from a mass of storm clouds at a height of more than 5 km during 140 to 160 nights a year, 10 hours per day and up to 280 times per hour. It occurs over and around Lake Maracaibo, typically over the bog area formed where the Catatumbo River flows into the lake.

After appearing continually for centuries, the lightning ceased from January to April 2010, apparently due to drought. This raised fears that it might have been extinguished permanently. The phenomenon reappeared after several months.

2. Cave of the Crystals

Cave of the Crystals or Giant Crystal Cave  is a cave connected to the Naica Mine 300 metres (980 ft) below the surface in Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico. The main chamber contains giant selenite crystals (gypsum, CaSO4·2 H2O), some of the largest natural crystals ever found. The cave's largest crystal found to date is 12 m (39 ft) in length, 4 m (13 ft) in diameter and 55 tons in weight. The cave is extremely hot with air temperatures reaching up to 58 °C (136 °F) with 90 to 99 percent humidity. The cave is relatively unexplored due to these factors. Without proper protection people can only endure approximately ten minutes of exposure at a time.

1. Pink and White Terraces

The Pink Terraces, or Otukapuarangi ("fountain of the clouded sky") in Māori, and the White Terraces, also known as Te Tarata ("the tattooed rock"), were natural wonders of New Zealand. They were thought to have been completely destroyed by the 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera, being replaced by the Waimangu Volcanic Rift Valley.

The Terraces were formed by geothermally heated water containing large amounts of silicic acid and sodium chloride from two large geysers. These geysers were part of a group of 40 geysers in the nearby area.

The Pink and the White Terraces were 800 metres apart. The White Terraces were at the north end of Lake Rotomahana and faced away from the lake at the entrance to the Kaiwaka stream. They descended to the lake edge 40 metres below. The extra sunlight they received from facing north gave them a more bleached or white appearance. The Pink Terraces were about two thirds of the way down the lake sheltered from the harsh sun on the western shores, facing south-east. Their pink appearance (near the colour of a rainbow trout) was largely due to less sunlight reaching them and therefore less bleaching.

Sources: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_circle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_tides

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basalt#Columnar_basalt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_Boulders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pillar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penitentes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatumbo_lightning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Crystals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_and_White_Terraces

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10 Unique Washbasin Ever

1. Brazillian Paper Washbasin

2. Cocktail Washbasin

3. Fish Sink Washbasin

4. Prep Sink Washbasin

5. Ripple Washbasin

6. Soccer Washbasin

7. Sperm Washbasin

8. Splashing Washbasin

9. Tire Washbasin

10. Waterfall Washbasin

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10 Transparent Animals of The World

1. Transparent Jellyfish

Jellyfish are free-swimming members of the phylum Cnidaria. They are found in every ocean, from the surface to the deep sea. Many jellies are so transparent that they are almost impossible to see. The one above is from the Arctapodema genus, with a size of an inch-long (2.5-centimeter-long). (Photo by Bill Curtsinger)

2. Transparent Salp

This jellyfish-like animals known as Salps feed on small plants in the water called phytoplankton (marine algae). They are transparent, barrel-shaped animals that can range from one to 10cm in length. (Photo by DM)

3. Transparent Amphipod

Called Phronima, this unusual animal is one of the many strange species recently found on an expedition to a deep-sea mountain range in the North Atlantic. In an ironic strategy for survival, this tiny shrimplike creature shows everything it has, inside and out, in an attempt to disappear. Many other small deep-sea creatures are transparent as well, or nearly so, to better camouflage themselves in their murky surroundings, scientists say. (Photo by David Shale)
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4. Transparent Zebrafish created by scientists

This see-through zebrafish was created in 2008 by scientists so they can study disease processes, including the spread of cancer. The transparent fish are allowing researchers at Children's Hospital Boston to directly view fish's internal organs and observe processes such as tumor growth in real-time in living organisms. (Photo by LS)

5. Transparent Icefish

Fund in the cold waters around Antarctica and southern South America, the crocodile icefish (Channichthyidae) feed on krill, copepods, and other fish. Their blood is transparent because they have no hemoglobin and/or only defunct erythrocytes. Their metabolism relies only on the oxygen dissolved in the liquid blood, which is believed to be absorbed directly through the skin from the water. This works because water can dissolve the most oxygen when it is coldest. In five species, the gene for myoglobin in the muscles has also vanished, leaving them with white instead of pink hearts. (Photo by uwe kils)

6. Transparent Larval Shrimp

Found in the in the waters around Hawaii, this transparent larval shrimp piggybacks on an equally see-through jellyfish. (Photo by Chris Newbert/Minden Pictures)

7. Transparent Squid

Found on the southern hemisphere's oceans, the Glass Squid (Teuthowenia pellucida) has light organs on its eyes and possesses the ability to roll into a ball, like an aquatic hedgehog. It is prey of many deep-sea fish (eg goblin sharks) as well as whales and oceanic seabirds. (Photo by Peter Batson) .

8. Transparent Frog

Native to Venezuela, the Glass Frogs belong to the amphibian family Centrolenidae (order Anura). While the general background coloration of most glass frogs is primarily lime green, the abdominal skin of some members of this family is transparent, so that the heart, liver, and digestive tract are visible through their translucent skin. (Photo by Heidi and Hans-Jurgen Koch)

9. Transparent Butterfly

Found in Central America, from Mexico to Panama, the Glasswing Butterfly (Greta Oto) is a brush-footed butterfly where its wings are transparent. The tissue between the veins of its wings looks like glass. (Photo by Hemmy)

10. Transparent Head Fish

This bizarre deep-water fish called the Barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) has a transparent head and tubular eyes. It has extremely light-sensitive eyes that can rotate within his transparent, fluid-filled shield on its head, while the fish's tubular eyes, well inside the head, are capped by bright green lenses. The eyes point upward (as shown here) when the fish is looking for food overhead. They point forward when the fish is feeding. The two spots above the fish's mouth are not eyes: those are olfactory organs called nares, which are analogous to human nostrils. (Photo by MBARI)

Bonus : All-Transparent-Body Fish

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10 Most Horrible Death Penalties

Capital punishment or the death penalty is a legal process whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The judicial decree that someone be punished in this manner is a death sentence, while the actual process of killing the person is an execution. Read more>>

10. Buried Alive

This death penalty has been used for both individuals and groups. Victims are usually tied and then placed in a hole and buried. There was the Nanjing Massacre during World War II, when Japanese soldiers buried Chinese civilians living in what is called "Ten Thousand Corpse Ditch".

9. Slow Slicing

Slow slicing (Lingchi) (simplified Chinese: 凌迟; traditional Chinese: 凌遲; pinyin: língchí, alternately transliterated Ling Chi or Leng T'che), also translated as the slow process, the lingering death, or death by a thousand cuts (simplified Chinese: 杀千刀; traditional Chinese: 殺千刀) or “千刀万剐”, was a form of torture and execution used in China from roughly AD 900 until its abolition in 1905. In this form of execution, the condemned person was killed by using a knife to methodically remove portions of the body over an extended period of time.

8. Burning at the Stake

Death by burning has been used as a form of capital punishment for centuries, often associated with crimes such as treason and witchcraft. Now, this is regarded as cruel and unusual, but before the 18th century, who was burned at the stake was a common practice. The victim tied to a large stake in the city or anywhere else with the audience and then lit the fire. It is considered as one of the slowest way to die.

7. The Five Pains

The Five Pains is a Chinese form of capital punishment invented during the Qin Dynasty (221 - 208 BC). The Five Pains were as follows: first the victim's nose was cut off, followed by a hand and then a foot. The victim was then castrated and finally cut in half at the waist. Li Si, who was chief advisor to emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, invented this form of lethal torture, and was ultimately executed this way himself.

6. Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered

To be hanged, drawn and quartered (less commonly "hung, drawn and quartered") was from 1351 a penalty in England for men convicted of high treason, although the ritual was first recorded during the reigns of King Henry III (1216–1272) and his successor, Edward I (1272–1307). Convicts were fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where they were hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded and quartered (chopped into four pieces). Their remains were often displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burnt at the stake.

5. Guillotine

The guillotine (/ˈɡɪlətiːn/ or /ˈɡiː.ətiːn/; French: [ɡijɔtin]) is a device designed for carrying out executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame in which a weighted and angled blade is raised to the top and suspended. The condemned person is secured at the bottom of the frame, with his or her neck held directly below the blade. The blade is then released, to fall swiftly and sever the head from the body. The device is best known for its use in France, in particular during the French Revolution, when it "became a part of popular culture, celebrated as the people's avenger by supporters of the Revolution and vilified as the pre-eminent symbol of the Reign of Terror by opponents." However, it continued to be used long after the Revolution and remained France's standard method of judicial execution until the abolition of capital punishment by President François Mitterrand in 1981. The last person guillotined in France was Hamida Djandoubi, on 10 September 1977.

4. Cement shoes

Cement shoes is a slang term adopted by the American Mafia crime world for a method of execution that involves weighting down a victim and throwing him or her into the water to drown. It has become adopted in the US as a humorous term representing any exotic threat from criminals. This gives rise to the term of someone who "sleeps with the fishes", a euphemism for the deceased. It was frequently used by the Gambino crime family in the prohibition era.

Cement shoes traditionally involve binding or incapacitating the victim and placing each foot into the two spaces of a cinderblock, which is then filled with wet cement. Sometimes a plain bucket or box is used. When the cement hardens, the victim is thrown into a river, lake or the ocean. It is unclear how often such a cumbersome and time-consuming method of execution was actually used, outside of Hollywood movies. It could also be used for aiding in the disposal of a corpse already dispatched by other means so that the victim is never found if deposited in deep water.

3. Republican marriage

Republican marriage (French: mariage républicain) was a form of execution that allegedly occurred in Nantes during the Reign of Terror in Revolutionary France and "involved tying a naked man and woman together and drowning them". This was reported to have been practiced during the drownings at Nantes (noyades) that were ordered by local Jacobin representative-on-mission Jean-Baptiste Carrier between November 1793 and January 1794 in the city of Nantes. Most accounts indicate that the victims were drowned in the Loire River, although a few sources describe an alternative means of execution in which the bound couple is run through with a sword, either before, or instead of drowning.
While the executions of men, women and children by drowning in Nantes is not generally disputed, the factual nature of the "republican marriages," in particular, has been doubted by several historians who suspect it to be a legend. The earliest reports of such "marriages" date from 1794, when Carrier was tried for his crimes, and they were soon cited by contemporary counter-revolutionary authors such as Louis-Marie Prudhomme and Louis Gabriel Ambroise de Bonald.

2. The Brazen Bull

The brazen bull, bronze bull, or Sicilian bull, was a torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece. Its inventor, metal worker Perillos of Athens, proposed it to Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas, Sicily, as a new means of executing criminals. The bull was made entirely of bronze, hollow, with a door in one side.  The condemned were locked in the bull, and a fire was set under it, heating the metal until the person inside roasted to death.

1. Crucifixion

Crucifixion is an ancient method of deliberately slow and painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead.

Crucifixion was used among the Seleucids, Carthaginians, and Romans from about the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD. In the year 337, Emperor Constantine I abolished it in the Roman Empire out of veneration for Jesus Christ, the most famous victim of crucifixion. It was also used as a form of execution in Japan for criminals, inflicted also on some Christians.

A crucifix (an image of Christ crucified on a cross) is the main religious symbol for Catholics, Lutherans, and Eastern Orthodox, but most Oriental Orthodox and Protestant Christians prefer to use a cross without the figure (the "corpus": Latin for "body") of Christ. Most crucifixes portray Jesus on a Latin cross, rather than any other shape, such as a Tau cross or a Greek cross.

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10 Secret Documents of The World

Save a document is actually a very reasonable thing to every human being but there are interesting things about the mystery and why the file / document is highly confidential. Here you are:

10. Dr David Kelly's Letter

Keep Sealed until 2073
The letter remained open for a week of political drama that tells about the British intelligence report that disclosed the evil prime minister Tony Blair in connection with the Iraq War, which led to Dr Kelly's death at the age of 59 years. Interesting fact: Most of the articles about Dr Kelly is pretty much driven a lot of conspiracy theories.

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Top 10 Internet Browser 2012

Internet browser is an application to assist internet users in navigating the virtual world. Each year Internet / Web browser that we use always fix bugs, ranging from security, features, speed browsing and so forth. According to the review / testing in 2012, this year there is a change from previously ranked number one internet browser which is occupied by Mozilla FireFox, but this year the first rank is taken over by Google Chrome. Chrome is already worthy of occupying the first position, given in terms of chrome speed noticeably faster than other browsers and not only that chrome does not take much RAM when browsing activity. 

Well, here is Top 10 Internet Browser of the Year 2012 review:

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10 Fastest Trains in The World

10. Siemens Velaro RUS 

Top Speed : 175 mph
Capacity: 600 Passengers
Country: Russia

9. THSR 700T 

Top Speed : 186 mph

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