But the reality is that robots and electronic devices are becoming more autonomous every day. The need to regulate their use, behavior and the underlying principles that determine our attitudes towards them is becoming more pressing with each step that they are able to take away from the hands-on control of humans.

As a starting point for dealing with these issues some governments have already begun work on a charter of robot ethics and so, with the suggestions of these bodies in mind, these are the top-ten future electronic/robot ethics issues. They run from tenth in importance to the most significant and each deserves serious consideration in its own right.

10. Robots created for adult purposes should not be permitted to work with children

Somewhere between the domestic and industrial uses of robots, there is a space for robots that will serve adult only purposes. In the same way that the internet has vast potential for positive and productive contributions to our lives, yet it is mostly dedicated to disseminating the sort of content you would never show your mum, the technology of robotics may well produce devices and electronic entities that will have to be restricted to adult usage.

This raises huge ethical questions about the capacity of these machines to also work with children. If a robot was created in the genre of the “naughty-nanny”, could it serve a dual purpose of providing care and companionship for the children, while also being a plaything of the parent? Or does the parent have to invest twice?

The waste of resources is contrary to the whole premise of creating occupational and financial savings to the owner. Yet, in many countries, humans who wish to work with children must pass a series of assessments to show that they are fit to do so. It is obvious that the safety of the child must take precedence over any other consideration.

However, a further concern that this division of labor arouses is the creation of a subculture of “naughty-robots”. As technology continues to develop and fine-tune the design of these machines, does society want a class of robots that operate with a different set of moral standards to most of society?

9. Robots should remain identifiable at all times

When we think of cars rolling off an assembly line, we automatically acknowledge that, apart from some superficial features, they are identical. For this reason, cars are fitted with number plates and vehicle identification numbers so the authorities can keep track of them. It makes sense then to apply the same principle to robots.

As machines with exceptionally greater power to have an impact on a community, robots, more so than cars, need to be readily identifiable. But before images of rogue Yul Brynner cowboy-robots rampage into your mind with all guns blazing, it’s probably worth noting that we are thinking more along the lines of a malfunctioning domestic cleaning unit that is trying to vacuum aisle twelve in the supermarket. Being able to identify it will mean that its warranty can be enacted and that it can be returned to its owner more easily.

However, as other ethical issues are discussed it must be considered that, as with most technological advances, there are always people who will misuse technology for their own advantage. Whether the intent is to protect society or the robot itself, being able to identify the robot is essential to the security of the community.

8. Robots should not leave the country without a permit

A worker on the docks always raised the suspicion of customs officials as he left on his bike each night. They were sure he was stealing something, but their searches and questioning revealed nothing they could pursue. That was until they realized that he arrived every morning on foot and left every night with a new bike.

This tale is an example of the potential dangers of allowing robots to move as chattel from one country to another. Issuing a passport to a robot carries with it an assumption of humanity. But without a permit, the autonomy of a robot would make it possible for unscrupulous traders to shift bus and plane loads of robots from one country to another without necessarily paying the required duties and levies.

A further concern is the capacity of the robot to carry information across borders without restriction. Portable devices, such as smartphones and external hard drives, can hold the personal details and financial dealings of thousands of people. Consider a more advanced form of information storage device that was mobile and could act autonomously. The potential for such machines to play a role in international identity theft and financial corruption is frightening. Regulation of the movement of such robots would go some way to securing against such activity.

7. A robot should not deceive a human being

Although this appears to be a commandment leveled at the robots, it is actually a direct instruction to programmers and designers. The capacity for deceit is present within the constraints of the technology. The setting of priorities for strategies and responses when the robot is faced with interrogation allows for the owner to be protected at the expense of the truth.

While robots are expected to be developed to have greater facial expression than Hymie from Get Smart, detecting nervousness or other tell-tale signs of deception in a robot would be much harder than in a human. Other incentives to provide truthful responses, such as appeals to conscience, would have little bearing on a robot as would threats of incarceration.

The greatest dilemma in determining truthfulness in a robot will remain the ability of the robot to understand the concept of truth. As truth is always painted from the point of view of the teller, a robot can only recall events from the information it is allowed to process. Requiring it to surmise or extrapolate may be well beyond its scope.

6. Robots should always be traceable

The desire for “traceability” is an understandable precaution in an industry that has the potential to grow at an exponential rate. As more sophisticated robots are able to perform more tasks with greater autonomy, the need to be able to account for their movements and actions is fundamental to maintaining control. The Standards of the European Union in this regard demand a “black-box” system of recording for such purposes.

Yet, such a means of accountability raises the ethical question of the robot’s right to privacy. In much the same way that humans object to closed circuit television and unauthorized audio recording, the robots could raise the argument that they are entitled to privacy at times in their lives.

Similarly, in situations where robots and humans interact, the recording of the meeting may well infringe on the human’s right to privacy. Obviously, an encounter with an adult entertainment robot could cause embarrassment should it be divulged through the traceability provision. But even dealings with robots designed for innocent financial transactions or standard communication functions could present unwarranted invasions of the privacy.

At some point, discerning robot from human will become difficult. Robots will become autonomous and functioning entities. Their right to privacy, if not for their own sake, will become vital in their dealings with humans. While it may be convenient to have complete traceability, there are many ethical hurdles to face before it can become appropriate.

5. The impact of robots on unemployment

The vision of robots relieving man of the mundane, repetitious and most menial tasks has always been high on the list of reasons to create the machines. But success in this endeavor carries with it some serious ethical concerns regarding the rights of workers, both human and robotic.

Workers in the developed world already face the hardship of unemployment when their jobs are out-sourced to a country that has a lower standard of living and significantly lower pay rates. As robots take on the unskilled jobs of the working class, the income and self-worth of these human workers will deteriorate. In the face of such social change, there is a real need for the government and employers to address the wellbeing of these unemployed workers.

Furthermore, the exploitation of the robot workers leads to the creation of a sub-class of the eternally struggling poor. Attitudes and motivations that arise from a community that has limitations on employment, finances and hope can lead to the growth of crime and a disregard for authority. As robot workers become more autonomous and human-compatible, the danger of establishing a robot “ghetto” will need to be addressed.

Similarly, the ethics behind effectively instituting slavery in the form of an entity being bonded to a company or human as chattel, may well evoke strong social reaction as the humanity of the robots becomes more recognizable.

While we may dream of the day when robots carry out all the boring jobs, leaving us time for leisure and luxury, the reality may be more difficult to accept. A purposeless life may well be soul destroying and, against a backdrop of pseudo slavery, the world may be a bleak reflection of our dreams.

4. A robot should never be deliberately damaged or destroyed

The Korean charter of rights for robots has many excellent offerings to the discussion of ethics relating to robots. One of the most obvious is the setting in law that the deliberate act of damaging or destroying a robot is an offence. While the law doesn’t go so far as to use language such as “kill”, “murder” or “assault”, there are a number of ethical aspects to this regulation.

Most obvious, and some would consider whimsical, is the rights of the robot. Animals are protected in many countries from cruelty, so why should a robot, which may have strong human features, not also be protected. Is killing a robot, which possesses a human form, not the same as murdering a person?

Obviously, as an offence against the robot, the answer must be “No”. The act of destroying a machine, no matter how much it looks like your Uncle Bob, is not depriving it of life. But, perhaps the greater concern is the intent. While no life is lost, the intent of the attacker was to stop an entity functioning. If they didn’t know that the victim was a robot, the intent was premeditated murder. Such behavior cannot be tolerated in a peace-loving society.

If, however, the aggressor did know that the victim was a machine, their crime is still one of willful damage. They have permanently deprived someone of their possession and so they have also effectively committed theft.

Even if the robot was their own property, the decision to damage or destroy it, either deliberately or through neglect, indicates that there is a significant issue relating to violence that must be addressed.

3. A robot should have the capacity to kill

Beyond the tedious tasks that we would like to allocate to robots, there are the distasteful and dirty jobs that we would rather not know about. These include government sanctioned acts of violence, such as war or police actions demanding the use of deadly force. But a vital aspect of these applications of robots is the autonomy of the machine in such circumstances.

Without bothering to enter into the science fiction realm of rogue robots in a killing frenzy, the issue of a robot’s authority to take life is fundamental to its fulfilling the roles of soldier or law enforcement officer. But giving a robot the power of life and death over a human could be construed as raising its status above that of the humans it encounters.

This further complicates the civil rights of robots and issues such as privacy and freedom of movement can become more involved discussions. It would seem contradictory that a robot could be limited in the expression of opinions, but given license to shoot someone.

It could be argued that the robot is simply a weapon and that, as gun simply enacts the process of firing when the trigger is squeezed, so the robot will only carry out the act of killing when commanded. However, the practicalities of having a human controller for every robot soldier or police officer could be unworkable.

The other option would be to extend the autonomy of the robot, allowing it to make value judgments and carry out actions on its own undertaking. Understandably, this produces a range of concerns including, the moral capacity of the robot, the legal responsibility for the machine and the safety precautions in the event of a software malfunction.

While society may deplore acts of violence and wish unburden its soldiers and law enforcement officers of such tasks, there are profound issues to be discussed before these roles can be relinquished to a robot.

2. Robots should be allowed to marry

While it may appear the stuff of bizarre websites or sensationalist television programming, the concept of a person marrying a robot, or two robots marrying each other, holds more concern than the derisive shaking of our heads would suggest. Aside from the sadness of the lonely person who can find no companionship more satisfying than that of a machine, there is the fact that marriage involves a commitment from two parties. Whether a robot has the capacity to make such a commitment is questionable.

Some celebrants and would-be robot-spouses argue that their robot fulfills all their needs and that formalizing the relationship is simply a public recognition of an otherwise private bond. However, the lack of free will on the part of the robot would suggest that it could not make any decision other than that directed by its owner. On this basis, one wonders how the purpose of the marriage certificate would differ from a purchase receipt.

In a passionate, but slightly whining, voice those pursuing such a union would explain that they want to share their lives and all they have with the intended partner. This strikes at the heart of a deeper issue than the provision of companionship for the desperately lonely, that is, the concept of property ownership.

If marriage is seen only as ritualistic reciting of promises and ignores the spiritual and legal connotations that are intrinsic to the sacrament, then a robot might be the ideal partner for the sake of the performance. However, as numerous governments around the world are even reluctant to recognize same-sex marriage between humans, the chances of their recognizing marriage involving an entity with no sex or, as Mork put it, interchangeable parts is minimal.

1. Robots should be able to own property

Underlying many of the ethical issues that confront the designers and programmers of robots is the definition of humanity. For all the discussions that argue the potential for robots to reason and learn independently of man, the most salient test of a robot’s rights as a human rests in a sadly capitalistic measure. That is, the ability to own property.

As a property owner a robot would have to be recognized by the legal machinations of the state. The robot would be liable for expenses and obligations associated with the property, as well as being entitled to profits and benefits arising from it. This would provide a status that would demand that the robot have voting rights in company dealings, in addition to the power to hire and fire workers, including humans.

This would allow the robot to enter into legally binding partnerships, such as businesses, trust funds and marriages. They would the right to carry out financial dealings, and presumably other dealings, in a private and respected manner. They would also have the right to protect their property by forceful means, which in some jurisdictions would include the right to kill.

Property ownership would also produce the ethical dilemma of a robot owning another robot. The ability to possess an entity of the same nature would produce a scenario not greatly unlike slavery. At that point, all robots would have to be granted legally human status.

The presence of robots in our society creates a multitude of ethical questions. Most of these will have logical and sensible answers. But as robots become more human-like in appearance, in the roles that they play and in their legal standing, many of the worst aspects of humanity, including prejudice, discrimination and envy will need to be revisited and defeated again.

In some regards, the more that robots remain in the image of their predecessor from Lost in Space and the more that they stay clunky and machine-like, the safer it will be for all of us.

After all, with the current advances of technology in today’s society, we can’t be sure that the way we learned things in school (memorizing facts, repeating experiments, etc.) is appropriate or applicable now or will be relevant to situations and environments of the future. We may need to learn how to learn in a new way. Today’s generation needs to be flexible, open to other ways of thinking, and confident in adapting to new contexts and situations.

Read through this list of (my) top 10 interesting mathematics anomalies and hopefully you’ll see how looking at things in a different light can result in good things for all of us. And don’t be surprised if you have fun along the way!

10. Interesting Multiplication Facts

All sorts of unexpected things can be found when looking through multiplication tables, such as the multiplication factoids shown below:

12,345,679 x   9 = 111,111,111

12,345,679 x 18 = 222,222,222

12,345,679 x 27 = 333,333,333

12,345,679 x 36 = 444,444,444

12,345,679 x 45 = 555,555,555

12,345,679 x 54 = 666,666,666

12,345,679 x 63 = 777,777,777

12,345,679 x 72 = 888,888,888

12,345,679 x 81 = 999,999,999

12,345,679 x 999,999,999 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

Truly amazing facts you can use to impress your friends!

9. The Kruskal Count

Martin Kruskal, a Princeton physicist, discovered a strange mathematical property that appears to apply to all written text. Follow the steps listed below to discover this weird phenomenon.

Consider Steve Jobs’ famous commencement speech to Stanford University students in 2005:

Step 1: Select any word from any of the first ten words and count the number of letters in that word.

Step 2: Count that many words forward through the passage to land on a new word. (For example, if you chose “limited” in Step 1, count forward 7 words to “else’s”)

Step 3: Count the number of letters in the new word and move forward that many words.

Step 4: Repeat Steps 1 through 3 until there are not enough words to complete the last word count.

Step 5: Write down the last word on which you land.

No matter which word you use to start the steps, you will always land on the same word (In this case “to”). Weird, huh?

8. PI Day

By definition, ∏ (pi) is the number you get when you divide a circle’s circumference by its diameter. It doesn’t matter what the size of the circle is – pi is always the same number: approximately 3.14159. Pi is an infinite decimal, which means when written in decimal form; the numbers to the right of the 0 do not end and never repeat in any pattern.

For centuries, scholars have tried to find the exact value of ∏ and to understand its characteristics. In the 3^rd century BC, Archimedes of Syracuse approximated the value of ∏ to be 3.14. With the advent of computers in the 20^th century, the value of ∏ has been computed to more and more digits. Today, over a trillion digits past the decimal are known.

∏ is an incredibly popular mathematical anomaly, and Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world on March 14^th (get it!? Pi = 3.14)

7. Fibonacci Numbers

Many people who read Dan Brown’s best-selling book The Da Vinci Code may be familiar with the works of the Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci who lived in the 12^th century A.D. In the book, the main characters use the Fibonacci numbers (a very famous mathematical progression) to crack secret codes to uncover a sinister conspiracy.

A Fibonacci number is any of the numbers that appear in the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, …., where each number, starting after the second number, is the sum of the two preceding numbers. (For example, 2 = 1 + 1; 3 = 2 + 1; and 21 = 13 + 8.)

If F_n is used to denote the nth Fibonacci number, the sequence can be described by the following formula:

F_n = F_n-1 + F_n-2   with F₁ = F₂ = 1

Fibonacci described how he came up with this formula when trying to answer the following rabbit-breeding problem in his text Liber abaci: “How many rabbits would be produced in the nth month, if starting from a single pair, any pair of rabbits of one month produces one pair of rabbits for each month after the next?”

By using the Fibonacci’s formula, this question can be solved. But what may be the most surprising thing about Fibonacci numbers is how often they occur in nature. For example, pineapples often have 5 diagonal rows of hexagonal scales in one direction and 8 in the other. Large sunflower species have 89 spirals arcing in a clockwise direction and 144 spirals in a counterclockwise direction.

When you have a chance, check out other spiral, petal and seed patterns occurring in nature:  pine cones, artichokes, nautilus, and strawberries. They are quite fascinating!

6. Zeno’s Paradoxes

During the 4^th century B.C., the Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea proposed 40 different paradoxes (convincing arguments) that challenged and influenced the Greek perception of time, space and motion. Zeno’s Paradoxes were devised in such a way that whatever side side of the argument you try to defend, you are not going to be correct.  Although the text in which these paradoxes were written did not survive, Zeno’s paradoxes were found in the writings of others.

Aristotle, the Greek logician who lived in the 3^rd century A.D., describes four of the most challenging and famous paradoxes in his work Physics.  These four paradoxes have remained unresolved for over two millennia: Dichotomy, Achilles and the Tortoise, The Arrow Paradox, and the Stadium Paradox.

Consider the Dichotomy Paradox that states: “That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.”

This means that in order for you to reach a goal, you must reach the half-way point for each step, an infinite number of times. How can this be? No wonder mathematicians have been trying to solve this dilemma for so long!

5. Fermat’s Last Theorem

Pierre de Fermat was a French mathematician who lived in the 17^th century and is famous for his work in the theory of numbers, calculus, probability theory and analytic geometry. Although he followed a career in law throughout his life, Fermat had a passion for reading and restoring classic Greek texts. While completing the mathematics passages that were missing from the original works from other records that survived from ancient times, Fermat reached out to other notable scholars with questions on the theory of numbers and to discuss ways he devised to solve geometric problems.

Some of the questions Fermat asked his colleges were often seen as too specific to be worth their time and were ignored. However, Fermat knew that by developing an understanding of the solutions to very specific questions, a gateway to great insight on the very general and mysterious properties of whole numbers could be opened.

After his death in 1665, Fermat’s son published Fermat’s annotated copy of the Arithmetica text by the classic scholar Diophantus of Alexandia. A note scrawled in the margin by Fermat stated that no positive integer solutions exist for the equation  with n greater than 2.

This famous note sparked an interest in number theory and resulted in a 350 year effort to reproduce Fermat’s alleged proof. And while the problem doesn’t appear to have any practical application, the work undertaken to solve it helped to advance the development of the mathematics field.

In the mid-1700s, Leonhard Euler proved that the equation with n = 3 has no positive integer solutions. Through the extensive work performed by Marie-Sophie Germain at the end of the 18th century, mathematicians were able to show that the theorem holds for all values of n less than 100.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, the fields of algebraic geometry and arithmetic on curves were developed, enabling mathematicians to look at the problem in different ways. In 1995, English mathematician Andrew Wiles presented a long and complicated proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem that is based on using mathematical approaches developed in the last century.

And although Wiles’ proof is highly regarded, he needed a computer to figure it out. Mathematicians are still searching for a simplified argument. So that leads us to the real question: How did Fermat prove it?

4. Riemann Hypothesis

George Friedrich Bernard Riemann is considered to be one of the greatest mathematicians of the 19^th century. In 1859, little known Riemann presented the paper “On the Number of Prime Numbers Less Than a Given Quantity” to the Berlin Academy of Sciences. An incidental remark included in the paper has proven to be cruelly compelling to countless scholars over the years.

That remark, known as the Riemann Hypothesis may seem as nonsense to anyone but a mathematician. Seriously, to explain what “All non-trivial zeros of the zeta function have real part one-half” means would take hours, if not days. So let’s skip the details.

But one of the most interesting things about Riemann’s Hypothesis is that Riemann’s work on the zeta function completely changed the direction of mathematical research in Number Theory. Riemann connected the notions of geometry and space to complex functions, and then to the study of numbers. By building off of his work, scientists and mathematicians have been able to investigate a wide variety of things, including code breaking and the physics of the atomic nucleus.

And although the Riemann Hypothesis has yet to be resolved, the significant achievements made during the attempt to do so have provided mathematicians with the means to translate insights and advances from the math field into results and discoveries in others (physics, geodesy, nuclear chemistry, etc.).

If you can solve this problem, you may be eligible to win one of the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Massachusetts (CMI) Millennium Prizes, valued around $1 million.

3. Mӧbius Bands

A Mӧbius band (also called Mӧbius strip) is a one-sided surface that can be obtained by gluing two ends of a half-twisted long rectangular strip. They look cool in M.C. Escher’s drawings and in real life:

Mӧbius bands were independently discovered by German mathematician Johann Listing and German scholar August Ferdinand Mӧbius in the 1850s. Some interesting things about these shapes are as follows:

• If you draw a line down the middle of the strip, you will eventually reach the starting point after drawing on what appears to be both sides of the strip – proving that there really is only one side.
• By tracing one’s finger along the edge of a Mobius band, every possible point on the edge of the object will be touched – proving that the surface has only one edge.
• It is impossible to cut a Mobius band in half. If you cut a Mobius band along the centerline, you will end up with one long strip with two full twists, rather than two separate strips.
• The B.F. Goodrich Company utilized Mӧbius-like shapes to design conveyor belts. Because the “wear and tear” was distributed throughout the entire shape, these belts lasted twice as long as conventional belts.
• Mobius bands have been in the design of electronic resistors, compact resonators and superconductors for complex electrotechnology applications.

After years of searching for examples in natural materials, U.S. Department of Energy scientists have recently discovered Möbius-like shapes occurring in metamaterials – that is, materials engineered from artificial “atoms” and “molecules”. This is big news for scientists who want to create structures with shapes that aren’t naturally occurring in materials or molecules, and up to this point were limited to only mathematical imagination.

2. Number 1 is not a Prime Number

This may come as a shock to you. It did to me. When I learned about prime numbers in elementary school, I was taught that 1 was a prime number. Things have changed though. Here’s what the mathematicians have to say about the prime numbers now.

A prime number is a whole number possessing just two positive factors.

For example, the number 5 has only two positive factors (1 and 5) and so it is a prime number. The number 24 has eight positive factors (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24) and is not a prime number. Since the number 1 only has 1 factor, it is not a prime number.

A composite number is any number greater than 1 that is not a prime number.

It is vital that the number 1 not be considered as a prime or composite number for the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic (Unique Factorization Theorem) to hold true. This theorem states: Every integer greater than one can be expressed as a product of prime factors in one and only one way, up to the order of factors.

The smallest prime is 2. Oddly, 2 is the only even prime and it is ironic that the set of all primes excluding 2 is called the “odd primes.”

I was shocked to find out that 1 is not considered a prime number. But then I found about the Number 1 Most Interesting Mathematic Anomaly and I have been motivated to keep looking for more…

1. Gӧdel’s Incompleteness Theorem

• Godel on the left

In 1931, the young Austrian logician Kurt Gӧdel rocked the world with his famous pair of incompleteness theorems that dashed the hopes of all the scholars who had been obsessively searching for a set of fundamental axioms from which all mathematics could be logically deduced.

Gödel’s discovery not only applies to mathematics but literally all branches of science, logic and human knowledge. It has earth-shattering implications. And few people know anything about it.

Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem says: “Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory.”

In other words: he proved that no formal mathematical system can demonstrate every mathematical truth.

Gödel was a dream killer, a modern day Zeno of Elea. Postmodernists have used his theorems to undermine scientists’ claims of certainty, objectivity and rationality. But to the contrary, Gӧdel contended that a transcendent mathematical reality exists independent of human logic.  Feel free to draw your own conclusions!

Biologists have chosen the word immortal to designate cells that are not limited by the Hayflick limit, where cells no longer divide because of DNA damage or shortened telomeres. A telomere is a region of repetitive DNA sequences at the end of a chromosome, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration or from fusion with neighboring chromosomes. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering. Though research is going on and new technologies are being invented for ending aging, life defined as biologically immortal is still susceptible to causes of death besides aging, including diseases, accidents, predations and traumas etc. The description of 10 major organisms that have shown very low, constant or reverse rate of mortality is given below:

8. Lobsters

Clawed lobsters comprise a family called Nephropidae which is also called Homaridae and eaten as seafood. Selling Lobsters is a big business especially in the areas where they populate. A single lobster usually has 10 walking legs. Its three front pairs of legs bear claws, the first of which are larger than the others. Lobsters typically eat live prey such as fish, other crustaceans, mollusks, worms, and some plant life.

Recent research suggests that older lobsters are more fertile than younger ones. It has been argued that lobsters may exhibit negligible senescence and some scientists have claimed that they could effectively live indefinitely, barring injuries, diseases and capture etc. Their longevity allows them to reach impressive sizes. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest lobster was found in Nova Scotia Canada and its weight was measured to be 20.15 kg.

7. Hydra (genus)

Hydras are one of the few animals that do not experience aging process and survive for millions of years.

Under the microscope, hydras have been found to be a few millimeter in length. According to Nineteenth century Biologists, its structure and nervous system was found to be so simple that it could easily be separated into its cells only with the power of gauze. However, if these cells are left untouched, they again merge into a group and produce a new hydra.

Hydras usually live in pollution free areas like fresh water ponds, streams, lakes and canals in the temperature and tropical regions. They usually eat animals that have no spine. Some Hydras’ species live in a co relationship with different types of unicellular algae. The algae are secured from predators by hydra and products result from photosynthetic process becomes the food for the hydra.

Because of its regenerative ability, hydra has been the center of attention of Biologists for years.

6. Black corals (Antipatharia)

In March 2009, scientists presented the results of their research on deep sea corals throughout the world. During the research they discovered a subdivision of Black Coral to be among the oldest continuously surviving organisms on the earth. Its age was estimated to be around 4,265 years. They showed that “radial growth rates are as low as 4 to 35 micrometers per year and that individual colony longevities are on the order of thousands of years”

According to their research black corals (also known as antipatharia) were a group of tree-like corals which survived in deep water. Though black coral’s living tissues were brilliantly colored, it was given the title black because of its skeleton’s distinctive black or dark brown color. It was also given a nickname little thorn coral because it had the tiny spines that covered the surface of the skeleton.

This group grows and occurs in the tropics. Its 230 known species have been found to be in 42 genera. Antipatharia grow also in New Zealand’s Milford Sound in rare dark shallow water areas. It is the official state gem of Hawaii.

5. Tardigrades (water bears or moss piglets)

Tardigrades are also known as water bears or moss piglets. They are microscopic, water-dwelling and segmented animals. The name Tardigrada means slow walker and the name water bear comes from the way they walk with eight legs. It gives the resemblance of a bear’s gait. The biggest adults may reach a body length of 1.5 mm and the smallest below 0.1 mm. Tardigrades occur over the entire world, from the high Himalayas (above 6,000 meters), to the deep sea (below 4,000 meters) and from the polar regions to the equator. They even can be found by soaking a piece of moss in spring water. Tardigrades are able to survive in harsh circumstances that would kill almost any other animal. Some can survive temperatures of close to absolute zero (−273 °C) temperatures as high as (151 °C), 1,000 times more radiation than other organisms, and almost ten days without water.

Tardigrades are one of the few groups of species who has the ability to suspend their metabolism and going into a state of cryptobiosis. In this state they are called as tun. Several species can survive in a dehydrated state for nearly ten years. While in this state their metabolism lowers to less than 0.01% of normal and their water contents can drop to 1% of normal. Their ability to remain dried for such a long period is largely dependent on the high levels of the non-reducing sugar, trehalose which protects their membranes.

4. The bristlecone pines

In 1964, a student of the University of North Carolina named Donald R. Currey was taking some core samples of bristlecones in the Snake Range of eastern Nevada. He discovered there a tree in a cirque below Wheeler Peak was over 4,000 years old. His coring tool broke, so he got the permission from the U.S. Forest service to cut down “Prometheus”. Approximately, 4,844 rings were counted on a cross-section of the tree. It proved it to be 4,844 years old and the oldest known non-clonal living organism on earth.

The bristlecone pines are a small group of pine trees that are thought to reach an age far greater than that of any other single living organism known up to nearly 5,000 years. Because of cold temperatures, high winds, dry soils, and short growing seasons, these trees grow at a very slow rate. Their wood is very dense and resinous making them so strong that they can protect themselves from any attach by insects, fungi, and other harmful pests. The bristlecone pine has an intrinsically low rate of reproduction and regeneration, and it is thought that under present climatic and environmental conditions the rate of regeneration may be not sufficient to sustain its population.

3. Jurupa Oak (clonal colony)

The Jurupa Oak is a clonal colony of Palmer’s oak trees in the Riverside County of southern California USA. The name Jurupa was given because, in the area where these trees have grown, Jurupa winds often blow in the hills. The colony started its life at the end of the ice age and still survives and grows in dry soil of California. In spite of being born in the ice age, facing worst wildfires and climate changes, they survived by cloning themselves, regeneration and hiding themselves in the narrow cracks of rocks .

The age of the colony has been estimated to be 13000 years . Another important question aroused minds of scientists, “How the crop grew as mass of bushes that could not produce fertile acorns?” This depicts that it was a group of clones that had all stemmed from one individual.

2. Pando (tree) – oldest living tree

Pando was discovered by an expert on North American aspen, Burton V. Barnes, from University of Michigan. Barnes was one of the first to describe the clonal growth of aspen from an extensive root system.  He explained it when he was working on his thesis at Michigan in the late 1950s. He said that Pando was a single organism based on its morphological characteristics. Later, Michael Grant of the University of Colorado also examined Pando and concluded that it was world’s most massive organism in 1992.

Pando is also known as the trembling giant. It is a clonal colony located in the Utah state of USA. It is still disputed that whether it is a single tree or a colony. Its weight has been estimated to be 6,000,000 kg making it the world heaviest known organism. Grown under ideal circumstances, encompassing 43 hectares and having around 47,000 stems, its root system has been estimated to be among the oldest known living organisms in existence at 80,000 years of age. The organism survived underground during wildfires.

1. Turritopsis Nutricula (immortal jellyfish)

Turritopsis nutricula is famously known as immortal jellyfish. It experiences a cell development method called transdifferentiation. In this process it alters the differentiated state of the cell and transforms it into a new cell. Theoretically, this process can go on effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal. This method has inspired scientists to find a way to make stem cells for renewing damaged or dead tissues in human body. Also, it is said that the immortal jellyfish may hold the answer to cure cancer and create anti-aging medication.

Turritopsis are found in temperate to tropical regions in all of the world’s oceans. Because of transdifferentiation they are spreading across the world as ships are discharging ballast water in ports. “We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion” said Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute scientist Dr. Maria Pia Miglietta.

10. Animal Testing

Without doubt the contemporary research practice that tugs most effectively on the heartstrings is that of Animal Testing or Animal Experimentation. It is especially abhorred when associated with the cosmetic industry, as it is seen to be causing suffering for the indulgent purpose of beautifying or pampering oneself. Yet, its banning is far from universal and, in some countries, a matter of little regard.

Fortunately, the European Commission has taken the lead in this matter and, in 2004, banned the testing of finished cosmetics on animals. By 2009, the EC had extended the ban to include ingredients or combinations of ingredients. Countries, such as Australia where no animal testing is done, lent their support to the cause by banning the importation of products that had been tested on animals.

Although the issue is not high on many lists as a banned scientific research study, it does rate highly in the emotional debate that often accompanies or inflames such matters. Extreme action taken by Animal Rights groups often testifies to this and the fanaticism associated can often draw a response from the most apathetic of observers.

9. Geoengineering Research

With the overwhelming tsunami of guilt and frustration that sweeps under the banner of Global Warming, it’s not surprising that scientists somewhere would offer a solution that combats the effects rather than addressing the cause. With a name that translates roughly to “manipulating mother nature”, Geoengineering appears to be the product of all those spoilt, and exceptionally clever, brats who used to argue, badger and twist the rules in any situation until they got their own way.

Their latest effort is to devise means by which man can alter the make-up of the environment, so that all this “rising sea level”, “deteriorating ozone layer” and “global warming” stuff won’t apply to them. One plan is to throw mountains of iron particles into the sea in areas that are iron-deficient. The hope is that this will promote the growth of phytoplankton in such quantities that the blooms will cover hundreds of square miles. The phytoplankton, as well as being a rich food source for marine life, will play a vital role in converting carbon dioxide into oxygen and reduce the prevalence of greenhouse gases.

Another theory would like to see futuristically designed ships with funnel like cannons that shoot seawater particles over three thousand feet into the atmosphere. Once there, the particles would create a cloud cover that would reflect sunlight and reduce the heating of the planet. Recent studies have shown that it will only need 1,900 of these vessels to stop the earth’s temperature increasing further.

There are many other Geoengineering solutions to climate change, including the installing of sunshades in space, which sound a little like something from the Simpsons really. What would happen if the cloud-spraying ships sailed across the phytoplankton bloom is messy to consider, maybe big green clouds of algae would drift inland and rain on the geoengineers parade. But it is the unknown nature of tampering with nature that has led the United Nations to ban research studies into the practice of Geoengineering. Perhaps they feel that the best way to convert carbon dioxide to oxygen and create shade would be to plant a tree.

8. Embryonic Stem Cell Research

There’s little surprise in finding the topic of embryonic stem cell research on such a list. However, it’s the outcry of lobby groups and political activists rather than the scientific community that has led to this research being regularly banned. The greatest concerns seem to lay in two main areas, the first being the fact that the stem cells are taken from a human embryo. While the researchers stress that these embryos are the offspring of test tubes only, there is a common concern that these embryos are being produced without respect for the humanity they could potentially become.

The second concern follows a similar line, in that many people are nervous about scientists playing with the building blocks of life. This may be borne of a genuine fear that such ventures into the realm of creation will make scientists arrogant and blind to the ethical implications of their work. It could also be that many of those protesting know that if the ability to discard the ugly and underachieving had been available forty to fifty years ago, they would probably never have made it to the birth canal.

Embryonic stem cell research has been banned in many countries, including the United States of America’s ban on funding for the research. Although the enormous potential for creating new cells to be used in the treatment of a range of debilitating conditions, including Parkinson’s Disease and Leukaemia, controversy rages. Nine of the fifteen nations in the European Union have banned the research and some countries, like the Us and Australia cannot find consensus, so research can continue in some states, but not in others.

7. Great Ape Research

Next time you’re sitting on a bus or stuck in a traffic jam or both, take a moment to look around and see if you can spot a Great Ape. Chances are, you won’t even recognize the one in the mirror next time you’re checking that you’re looking your best. As much as it sounds like a joke an aging uncle might play on you, the reality is that humans are classified as Great Apes.

This fact led a number of nations, including the entire European Union and New Zealand to ban scientific research that involves Orangutans, Gorillas, Chimpanzees and Bonobos. Such testing is considered unethical as these animals have been shown to be so cognitively close to humans that it’s almost like hooking up the electrodes to that same aging uncle.

Although some scientists have presented scenarios that might override these bans, the principle has been maintained. In spite of this, there are approximately 1,200 chimpanzees currently being provided with accommodation and meals in U.S. laboratories, as thanks for playing vital roles in the area of biomedical research.

In Austria, the authorities have even gone one step further than the rest of the E.U. and banned experimenting on gibbons, as well. But the Animal Rights activist could well be excused for asking if the only reason these animals have been shown such mercy is that they may resemble a relative. Why is it permissible to cause suffering as long as the victim doesn’t remind us of an old uncle of whom we’re particularly fond of?

6. Human Cloning

The discussion around the banning of research into cloning is continuously baffled by the distinction between human cloning and therapeutic cloning. While the former evokes images of the “Boys from Brazil” and “Joshua, Son Of None”, the latter entices scientists and health workers with the temptation of cloned cells, tissues and organs that could be introduced to a patient without fear of rejection or the need for immunosuppressive drugs.

Most, if not all, governing bodies faced with the dilemma have come to the same decision. Human cloning and research studies into human cloning are banned without compromise. While there are some that debate the matter through some administrative principle, for the most part the concerns are as stated in Dignitas Personae, a statement of Pope Benedict XVI. This makes the point that human cloning constitutes a “grave offense to the dignity of that person as well as to the fundamental equality of all people.”

However, the issue of therapeutic cloning is still a matter of debate. Some countries have taken the bold step of distinguishing between the two forms and refrained from banning scientific research into the latter. These have included the United Kingdom and Australia. The United States of America have tried on four occasions to pass a bill banning all cloning, but on each occasion, while human cloning is banned without great contention, therapeutic cloning has remained the point at which consensus cannot be reached.

While Dolly, the cloned sheep, may have excited the scientific world with the possibility of cloning on a larger scale, the ban on scientific research studies into the human applications of this technology continue to thwart those that would lead us to our own “Brave New World”.

5. Tuskegee Syphilis Study

While it may be encouraging to note that the banning of research studies into the Great Apes occurred because it was too much like testing on humans, it is equally disturbing to learn that it is only through the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioural Research that regulations regarding testing on humans have been developed. This has effectively banned secret scientific research studies like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, the discovery of which led to the establishment of the Commission.

In order to study the nature and effects of syphilis, the U.S. Public Health Service in Macon County, Alabama, instigated a study observe the progress and phases of the disease when left untreated. Six hundred African-American men unknowingly took part in the study, almost two thirds of them suffering latent syphilis. The identity of the disease was kept hidden through the low socioeconomic status of the participants and the high level of illiteracy. Even when members of the study group enlisted in the Armed Forces during World War II, the government conspired with the study organisers to see that they were not treated for the disease directly.

While all six hundred men were provided with adequate health care in all other aspects of their lives, the treatment of “Bad Blood”, a euphemism for syphilis, was governed by the study organisers. By 1972, when the study was exposed, twenty-eight men had died of the disease, a hundred others had perished through related complications and at least forty wives were infected, along with nineteen children who had been born with the disease.

Reparation was made by the government at a rate of less than a thousand dollars for every year of the study, but at least the sufferers could be consoled by the fact that this form of secret scientific research study was banned.

4. Stanley Milgram Experiment (1961)

While the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was notable as a study that neglected to inform the participants of their involvement, Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment or “Shock” study gained notoriety far more openly. The work was completely transparent in all regards, save the use of an actor as the “Learner” in the experiment. However, the ethical fallout of the experiment led to the banning of unauthorised scientific research involving human subjects.

It must be acknowledged that Stanley Milgram’s work was focussed on explaining one of the most difficult psychological problems of the twentieth century. It was devised to gain an understanding of the behaviour of the soldiers who participated in the atrocities of the Holocaust. To this end, he enlisted the service of forty men and instructed them that they, as the “Teacher”, would be administering electric shocks to the “Learner” each time they submitted a wrong answer. The shocks would begin at thirty volts and continue in increments of fifteen volts to a maximum of 400 volts. However, once each experiment began, the “Authority” would instruct the “Teacher” to continue giving the shocks despite the requests from the “Learner” to cease.

In preparing the experiment and assembling the participants, it was anticipated that only 2% to 3% would follow the instructions of the “Authority” once the “Learner” had made clear that they no longer wanted to continue. Disturbingly, rather than the one or two out of forty participants that this was expected to uncover, 65% of the participants conceded to follow the orders of the “Authority” figure.

While there is much that is unsettling about Milgram’s experiment, the response of banning unauthorised scientific research studies was profound. The “shock” study left a huge proportion of its subjects with psychological scars from the trauma involved and led to the establishing of an Institutional Review Board in every university in the United States which brought a new level of ethical responsibility to the psychological research.

3. Studies into race and intelligence

In a world that seems determined to deny any subject the right of moral or ethical taboo, the very mention of a study into the link between race and intelligence can see liberals and free-thinkers scuttle for cover. In some regards their desperation to declare the subject off-limits almost suggests that they think there is something to find with which they don’t want to deal.

The potential to attract widespread disdain by suggesting that all races aren’t the same beneath the skin seems to outweigh any foreseeable benefit of further study. The consideration that races may have evolved to have intelligences and attributes that met the needs of the environment in which they developed does, to those who try to see the issue in the black and white of scientific rigour, almost Darwinian.

But, it would seem that the God-fearing people in power are happier offending creationists than the racist-fearing people in power are of offending a political majority.

2. Galileo

Commonly our thoughts of banned scientific research studies run to experiments of the twentieth century or later, where the process involved cruel or controversial practices. But one of the most notable bans to be place on scientific research was characterized more by the cruel practices employed to enforce the ban. Gallileo and his support of a Copernican view of the universe came into conflict with the Catholic Church in the seventeenth century and the ban placed on this research by the Church was enforced through the powers of the Inquisition.

The observations and subsequent research carried out by Gallileo into the heliocentric nature of the world offended the biblical account of creation which positioned the Earth at the centre of the universe. This was an Aristotelian philosophy as well as a biblical one and the Church judged that, on the basis of these two authorities, it was right to dismiss Copernicus’ heliocentric proposal.

However, when Galileo wrote to Madame Christina of Lorraine, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, regarding the use of the Bible as a source of scientific knowledge, he attracted the attention and disdain of the Church. He was banned from teaching, defending or even discussing the Copernican view.

Sometime later, Galileo published a book that further supported the Copernican view. This brought him into further conflict with the church and, under threat of torture and death, Galileo recanted swearing that he would “never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me”.

While the modern Catholic Church cannot be held responsible for the actions of some of its members almost four hundred years ago, this was one of the most significant and public bans ever placed on a scientific research study. In hindsight, it acts as a template for oppressive bans founded in political and personal gain and using an otherwise positive institution as a vehicle for prejudice.

1. US and China Collaboration

The concept of a banned scientific research study can take many forms. The practices of the study can be considered erroneous, cruel or traumatic; the purpose of the study can be seen as pointless or wasteful; the science behind the study can be questionable. But it is rare that a scientific research project is openly banned because of the personnel involved in the study.

This is the case, though, in a recent decision by the United States of America Congress to ban the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from working on any collaborative scientific project with China. As two of the major powers in the world today, there was much goodwill and common purpose in the possible joint project, but the fear of losing technological advances to a rival outweighed the benefits in the eyes of Congress.

On the basis of National Security, the venture was scrapped and a further bill was passed into law that no joint project with China should go ahead in the near future. A spokesman for Congress made it clear that espionage and a long-term weakening of the status of the US were the primary reasons for the ban. It was acknowledged that China was spying on the US and that, in cooperating with the Chinese, “We (America) have nothing to gain from dealing with them”.

The reason given for the banning of scientific research that would be shared with China may never be fully known. It is, however, worth recalling that should the fears of Congress be found to be true, it would not be the first time that a genuinely good idea was abused and those involved cheated.

Conclusion
In compiling this list, one research practice that seemed relevant, but didn’t quite fit the criteria was that of whaling. That is because whaling for anything but research purposes has been banned and scientific research is the banner under which countries like Japan and Norway continue to hunt. To include this topic in the list would have meant changing the parameters of the list to include research studies that should be banned, which would have been a significantly longer list.

Modern psychology has many different ideas of how our development, personality, cognition and morality is shaped and changes throughout our lives. Below are some of the most interesting and important theories of psychology that are sure to have impacted your life without you even knowing it.

10. Classical Conditioning

One of the fundamental theories of psychology is the idea of “classical conditioning.” Ivan Pavlov, one of founding fathers of behaviorism, discovered classical conditioning when he noticed his test animals were associating certain environmental cues with physical reactions. Pavlov discovered that dogs in his laboratory would begin salivating when lab workers dressed in white lab coats walked into the room. Tying two situations together, Pavlov theorized that since the white-coat lab workers fed the dogs, that perhaps the dogs were associating the white lab coats with food and therefore salivating as if they had a giant steak in front of them.

To test this theory, Pavlov designed an experiment with his lab dogs. Instead of using white coat lab workers, Pavlov would set a metronome off right before feeding times. After a few trials, dogs would begin to salivate every time they heard the metronome. The resulting theory, classical conditioning, was then born.

Academically, classical conditioning is described when a neutral stimulus (in Pavlov’s case, a metronome) is suddenly capable of producing a stimulatory response (a dog salivating), also known as a conditioned response. At this point, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus and can become quite powerful.

Today, behaviorism’s classical conditioning is used in all sorts of training programs. The military uses this conditioning when training troops for urban warfare. Dog trainers use this conditioning with clickers when trying to stop or encourage canine reactions. Classical conditioning is an important training component of many everyday occurrences.

9. Operant Conditioning

Another behaviorism theory that’s shaped the modern world is the idea of “operant conditioning.” As Pavlov was investigating classical conditioning, another behaviorist, B.F. Skinner, was investigating how punishment and reward was a powerful motivator in behavioral conditioning. B.F. Skinner was a pure behaviorist, believing that almost none of our behavior could be explained by cognition. Instead, B.F. Skinner believed that all behavior was the result of years of learned responses based on rewards and punishment.

B.F. Skinner’s theory suggests that behaviors that we use within our surroundings to generate consequences (good or bad) should be called an “operant.” The consequences we receive on a daily basis based on our operant actions shapes our behavior. If we receive negative feedback to our operant behavior, we tend to decrease that action which cases the negative feedback. Vice versa, if we receive favorable feedback to another operant behavior, then we tend to increase that action.

This form of conditioning is most often used in traditional parenting and in everyday social interactions. When we receive negative feedback from those around us, we tend to adjust our behavior to fit expectations that will reinforce our social goals. Operant conditioning is also used everyday by companies around the world in traditional rewards programs that reinforces better sales or customer service relations. We learn to behave in certain ways based on the positive or negative feedback around us.

8. Theory of Cognitive Development

It’s common knowledge that as children develop into adults, they go through characteristic stages of development. A 3-year-old definitely has different cognitive skills than a 7-year-old and will react very differently to the world around him or her. Jean Piaget, a cognitive psychologist, sought to explain the different stages that children go through to develop full cognitive understanding of the world around them. Piaget further used this to understand how proper parenting can lead to better developed, emotionally stable adults.

Piaget proposed that we begin understanding the world in the form of schemas. A schema is comprised of our knowledge and the process of obtaining that knowledge. It’s the systematic way in which we understand something, such as a “tree” or a “car.” According to Piaget, children develop through schemas in key stages: assimilation, accommodation and finally equilibrium. This process develops and continues throughout the rest of our lives as we are always learning and adapting.

Today many schools use this theory to teach their students. Gradually building upon concepts and facts allows children to fully develop into well-rounded intelligent adults. It also encourages mental development and logical thinking.

7. Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

Robert Sternberg is a cognitive psychologist who approached intelligence and cognitive development in terms of a person’s worldview and surrounding environment. Sternberg created the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence by suggesting that intelligence is our adaptation to the world relevant to our lives through mental activity. Sternberg continued cognitive psychology’s idea that intelligence is multi-factorial, but also believed that intelligence could be shaped into three primary factors: analytical intelligence, creative intelligence and practical intelligence. All factors involve the integration of past experiences into solving new problems and novel situations in our surrounding environment.

6. Multiple Intelligences Cognitive Theories

Much in line with Sternberg, another cognitive psychologist named Howard Gardner further reinforced that intelligence cannot be construed to one single factor. Howard Gardner is the father of Multiple Intelligences theory. Gardner proposes that intelligence can be divided into eight very unique categories that are shaped by our surrounding environment (much like Sternberg). Culture and past experiences shape which category is most highly valued and sought after in our everyday life. As children, we develop each category based on external culture and our natural abilities.

The eight categories proposed by Gardner are Visual-spatial Intelligence, Verbal-linguistic Intelligence, Bodily-kinesthetic Intelligence, Logical-mathematical Intelligence, Interpersonal Intelligence, Musical Intelligence, Intra-personal Intelligence and Naturalistic Intelligence. Today, many human resource departments use this theory to ensure a well-rounded approach to employee management and development. Well-supported adults who feel fulfilled in each category are reported to be the happiest and most balanced.

5. Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development

Probably the most popular psychological theory is the Psychosexual Development Theory proposed by Sigmund Freud to explain childhood development and later adult behavior and personality. Freud’s developmental theory is perhaps one of the most important developmental theories still impacting modern psychology today.

Freud was one of the first modern psychologists to approach development from a psychological and biological perspective. By age five, Freud proposes that fundamental parts of one’s personality are already developed, either successfully or non-successfully. Freud also was the first to suggest that unresolved phased leads to a lifetime struggle to resolve conflict within that phase. To Freud, the energy that drives development is the libido, also known as psychosexual energy.

Freud’s stages of development are the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latent stage and finally, genital stage. Successful resolution at all stages leads to a warm, well-balanced adult capable of having fulfilling mentally stimulating relationships. Any unresolved conflict leaves people in the stage they experienced conflict and leads to socio-psychological consequences.

4. Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

A unique human trait in our social development is the fact that we experience morality. We have a common set of social expectations and experience guilt when we go against our pre-identified expectations. But how do we develop these moral expectations? Are there stages?

Using Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, Lawrence Kohlberg considered the idea that perhaps morality also develops through a process from childhood. As a result, Kohlberg came up with “Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development.” According to Kohlberg, there are six major stages of moral development. Not everyone reaches all six stages; rather, many adults end up only reaching stage three or four while a few may reach stage six. Moral development is spurred by cultural expectations and continuing life experience.

According to Kolhberg, the six stages of moral development are Obedience and Punishment, Individualism and Exchange, Interpersonal Relationships, Maintaining Social Order, Social Contract and Individual Rights and finally, Universal Principles. Kolhberg theorizes that the highest form of morality recognizes universal rights and internalized principles of justice that are followed despite regional laws or expectations.

3. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

A well-known humanist, Abraham Maslow, sought to understand how people were motivated throughout their lives. Maslow theorized that humans seek to satisfy their needs and wants in a certain order. Basic needs and wants are always satisfied first and left unfulfilled, people won’t move up the “hierarchy of needs.” Today, Maslow’s theory has become very popular in business planning and human resources.

Maslow visualized human needs as a pyramid, or a hierarchy, of needs. At the bottom of the pyramid, you have needs such as food and water. These are known as basic physiological needs. These needs at the bottom of the pyramid must be fulfilled before needs above them can be addressed.

The next levels, going up, are security needs, social needs, esteem needs and finally, self-actualization needs. It’s important to note that the pyramid is a two-way street. At any given point in our lives, we may be at different levels of fulfillment. Security needs include the need for safety and one’s assurance of safety. Social needs include friendships, romance and community involvement. Esteem needs includes one’s perception of self-worth and impact on the surrounding environment (socially and physically).

Self-actualization is the top of the triangle, and it’s important to note that most adults never reach this stage. At this stage, all needs have been fully met and the person is free to fulfill their true perceived calling. Self-actualized people are also fully accepting of the world around them and they seek to improve the global environment- not just their own small world.

2. Murray’s Psychogenic Needs Theory

Another popular psychologist who fed from Maslow’s ideas of needs and fulfillment is Henry Murray. Instead of viewing needs as a holistic pyramid-structure like Maslow, Murray viewed needs as falling into key categories of primary needs and secondary needs. Murray also went further to tie personality into these needs. Murray theorized that personality was actually divided by these needs into motives and behaviors to fulfill them by our reactions in specific situations.

Primary needs, according to Murray, are the basic needs that we need to survive and thrive. These needs include oxygen, food, shelter and water. Secondary needs are primarily psychological and contribute to our thriving. These needs are things such as social interaction, achievement and nurturing.

A critical element of Murray’s theory is that each individual has a different level of need in each category. Murray broke down these needs into 24 key components, each of which can be fulfilled or unfulfilled at the same time. Instead of needs being broken down into stages (as in Maslow’s theory), Murray theorized that our need fulfillment is fluid, just like our personalities. The fulfillment of these needs will change, situation-dependent, and much of our behavior and motivation lies in fulfilling these needs to the maximum.

1. Triangular Theory of Love

One of the most interesting fields in modern psychology is the study of love. Love is one of the most powerful emotions in human history. Love has spurred wars, peace and history itself.

Sternberg, while popular for his Triarchic Theory of Intelligence, also applied a triangular theory to love. To Sternberg, love is comprised of three components: intimacy, passion and commitment. Love itself is comprised of a combination of these components. The longest enduring kind of love is when all three components are present at once. This is also the rarest kind of love.

Psychology is a very interesting field of study because it seeks to discover how we define ourselves and why we interact with the world the way we do. Understanding these things can help us become well-balanced emotionally healthy adults who live life to the max.

Cloning is a concept that involves the removal of the nucleus from an egg and its placement into another fertilized egg, which itself had its nucleus removed. This nucleus, in its new home directs the development of a complete organism. Although cloning is a naturally occurring phenomenon in case of some organisms such as armadillos, poplar trees, aphids, etc. it can also be implemented on humans.

Man has been inquisitive about human cloning ever since its inception. This is reflected in literary works like The Boys from Brazil (by Ira Levin) and movies like The Sixth Day. Although, human cloning is essentially considered unethical but ethical concerns about whether an action is right or wrong are often clouded by subjectivity, emotion and perspective. In this article we discuss the top ten arguments concerning human cloning. Some of these arguments shed light on the unethical nature of human cloning while others support the development and research of new technologies that can ensure safe and successful human cloning.

10. Social Uneasiness

One of the major anomalies surrounding human cloning is that it creates a unique and uneasy social confrontation. If a person clones himself and brings up the child as his own it gives way to a strange situation. Rather than being the clone’s father he would be ideally the clone’s sibling. Also, in the society clones stand at a very awkward position. What should they be considered? When an entity is added to a family he/she holds some relation to each member of the family, but clones emerge out of thin air. Their relations with the other members of the family are merely a notion rather than a reality. Such social awkwardness leads to a psychological hindrance in the development of the clone.

9. Constrained Psychological Development

In the book, The boys from Brazil, 94 clones of Adolf Hitler are conceived in various parts of the world and a plan is made to kill each one’s father to recreate the same circumstances that could give rise to the birth of another Führer. This more than sufficiently proves that cloned humans will be images of their nuclear donors. They will have a different life because their lives can be measured. They will be subjected to tests that they are supposed to pass because that is what originally happened. This constrains their level of their psychological and social development.

8.  Freedom of Choice

Whenever, a groundbreaking discovery has surfaced, it has been opposed by the masses, churches, governments, etc. This happens because man has always been shy of change. But discoveries and inventions are the life studies of some men for his fellow men and should be addressed with respect and embraced. Anything that is followed by something good cannot be all bad and all good things are worth fighting for. Cloning is as natural as reproduction, and should not be prohibited. Who is to judge that cloning is wrong, it depends entirely on an individual’s perspective. Some may find it wrong while others might approve of it. With the rise of individualism in the human society, choices should be left entirely to person.

7. The “Objectification” of Humans

If man could be grown in laboratories like some vegetable, it defeats the purpose of being born. The love, care and pain the mother goes through to give birth to a child personifies man. It is part of our identity as living organisms. The conception of man as an object that can be manufactured degrades this very individuality.

The child born through cloning isn’t unique. It is an image of its nuclear donor. It has no individuality. This child will always be perceived as piece of commodity can be manufactured again and again.

Humans have been blessed with intellect but the use of this intellect to create lesser humans is an abuse of this power. The question that we should ask ourselves is that, will these people be treated with the same respect and dignity in society. This objectification of man is the degradation of man by man himself and should not be tolerated.

6.  Sanctuary to Many

What if the most intelligent man on earth married the most beautiful woman, their combined gene pool would be lush with excellent quality genes. Their children would have what everyone desires. They would be subject to envy by everyone. Now throw infertility into the mix. This complicates things because now since they cannot conceive they would have to adopt, what a waste.

What if human reproductive cloning could be developed to such extents that it would be safe to give birth to our own offspring? For people who cannot be treated by fertility treatments, reproductive cloning can show them a way where they can have their own children. For them, cloning is a true hero. It helps to protect them from many psychological tensions that they may face in case of adopted children. It helps them live a normal life like the rest of the society.

5. Sanctuary to Many II

Elton John, Ellen DeGeneres are Jack Twist (Brokeback Mountain) people who have something in common. Yes, they are famous and they are gay. Now being gay is not a crime. In fact, it is one of the boldest stands taken for love and compassion in the history of mankind. People who are gay love their partners in same way a straight couple loves and they would too like to have babies with their partners just like straight couples. Human cloning gives them a shot at this. Take Elton John for instance, he has ten grandchildren but no children. I bet that he would have loved to have children with his partner.

Cloning gives gay and lesbian couples a chance to live like normal families. They can give birth to babies who they can nourish and bring up without dreading a day when they have to explain the situation to them.

4. Unsafe Procedure

Dolly, the world’s most famous sheep was famous because it was a clone. It lived till the age of six and gave birth to five healthy lambs. It died because of lung cancer which is a quite common disease in sheep. Though it can be suggested that Dolly suffered death under quite common circumstances, some say otherwise. Dolly’s life expectancy was predicted to be 11 to 12 years but it died prematurely. It has been speculated that maybe the reason for this premature death was that Dolly had a genetic age of six years. As it is almost impossible and impractical to clone a new born baby, clones will always suffer from this anomaly.

Therefore, the development of clones can prove to be very destructive, resulting in the death of many clones, and if someone did not know better, he may brand this as murder. Technology hasn’t been developed to such extents that ensure successful conception of clones and maybe it should be given a rest until then.

3. Down a Dangerous Path

In popular culture, often movies and novels are based on dangerous genetic engineering methods. In the movie Hollow Man, the antagonist who befalls an accident and turns invisible, soon proves to be very hazardous. In the movie Soldier, staring Kurt Russell, a new breed of genetically engineered soldiers is introduced to replace the regular ones. These soldiers later turn rouge. So there is no measure of the amount of destruction dangerous genetic engineering methods can do. If human cloning is encouraged and eventually accepted, then who is to say that tomorrow newer technologies will not be supported which can lead to the similar scenarios as portrayed in the movies mentioned above. Reproductive cloning stands at the door of a very dangerous path which holds the potential to destroy, well, everything.

2. Athelas Leaves

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth writings, Athelas is a plant which has healing capabilities. It was used by the King to heal others and was like a wonder drug. In Hindu Mythology, in the Ramayana, Lord Hanuman rescued Lakshman, brother of Lord Ram, from fatal war wounds by bringing him the Sanjeevani Booti from the Himalayas. These citations confirm that man has always longed for a wonder drug or at least something close to it. Cloning is the closest man has ever got to it.

Cloning gives way to growing parts of the human body by using the hosts DNA. Such parts can then be used to replace the original ones which have lost their use now. Specific organs can be cloned and transplanted in place of the original organs. Many people die of organ failures or lose their eyes and limbs in fatal accidents or are born with some imperfections. These people can be treated using cloning can yet again live life as they ought to.

1. Man Playing God

Conflicts of ideas with religious sects and their beliefs is an age old phenomenon. Religious beliefs have always tried to draw lines around the mobility of ideas. Ideas on the other hand, have always tried to work around these lines. When the idea was that the earth revolves around the sun, churches reacted violently. Jesus was crucified because he had over ceded his role as a human being. History is full of such examples. Every revolutionary idea has to go through its share of endurance before being accepted.

After human cloning became general knowledge, several quotes of the Bible and the Quran have been cited and interpreted as anti-cloning, thereby drawing the same lines around the development of human cloning. The development of human cloning is like cracking the code to become God. Man can create life using cloning, engineer specific features to appear while make others disappear. Creation of life, which has been the privilege of the Gods, is now about to be brought down to laboratories and test tubes. Religious sects believe that this is a degradation of the power of God. Man was not supposed to do this.

Although rebuttals can be found to each of these arguments, these arguments stand at their respective places. After much debate and speculation around the world over the years, it is the general conception that cloning humans does more harm than good and therefore its study and development should be held captive, at least for now.

Most of us take our brains for granted, never thinking about the amazing organ, which, even more than our hearts, is so critical to our survival. Think about it. Without your brain processing information, you would never know what you’re hearing, seeing, smelling, or feeling. You would never dream, have no reasoning power, or have any memory of anything that happens.

Of course, without the brain, or with a brain of a lesser capacity, its doubtful humans would ever have clawed their way to the top of the food chain. We’d still be living in fear, somewhere on the plains of what, admittedly, would probably be an unspoiled world.

We’d be incapable of most of the feats that have so stirred pride, and shame, among us. No great cities would exist, nor would we spend years growing our knowledge before finally venturing out into the working world, bent on making our mark. We would never have developed our appetite for knowledge, or entertainment, and, the world as we know it, simply would not exist.

However, quite aside from the great things the power of our minds have helped us achieve, the human brain is, in itself, a fascinating organ, and here are our top ten interesting facts about this mighty biological computer.

10. It Has a Storage Capacity In the Terabytes

Anyone who has a computer will know what a gigabyte is. You might not know what a terabyte is though. A terabyte is a storage capacity that is a little over a thousand gigabytes.

Scientists have discovered that the human brain has a storage capacity of between three and one thousand terabytes, depending on the individual. Then consider that Britain’s National Archives, which store nine hundred years of information for an entire country, takes up only around seventy terabytes. That means that you are probably entirely capable of storing that entire body of information in your brain, with room to spare.

It’s also been said that your brain can hold over five times the amount of information in the Encyclopedia Britannica, or just about any other encyclopedia out there. What that means is that your capacity for learning, and retaining information, far outstrips any computer currently out there, or which is likely to be in existence any time soon.

With such an awesome storage capacity, everyone has the ability to learn, and remember, all the things that we need to know to survive, and a whole lot more besides.

9. Your Brain Operates on Current

Yup. Just like that computer, your brain uses electrical power, generated in your body, to operate.

In fact, even when we are asleep, the electrical energy generated by your brain is about comparable to that used by a 10 Watt light bulb. So, when you see those pictures in cartoons of people having ideas, with light bulbs over their heads, it’s not merely fantasy. You are actually using that much power, if not a little more, to have that brilliant thought.

Of course, because the brain functions on electricity, that could explain why certain devices, like cell phones, and power lines, can interfere with that activity in the long term, and lead to damage. So, take care which electrical appliances you use, and limit their impact on your own personal super computer.

8. Nerve Impulses Travel As Fast As Racecars

You’ve probably never wondered why, when you experience a tactile sensation, whether it be pain, heat, cold or anything else, in an extremity like your toe, that’s far away from your brain, you experience it instantaneously.

The reason for this is that your brain, and central nervous system, sends messages at the very efficient, and fast, rate of around one hundred and seventy miles per hour. This means that while there is a split second delay in your experience of that sensation, it’s not much, and your nerves, and brain, send and receive signals at the same speed as many luxury sports cars drive!

Consider the number of messages rushing around your body at that speed right now. Isn’t it amazing to thing that those little electrical impulses are what lets us experience the world around us?

Of course, it’s not only the impulse, but the response that’s important – think about it – your brain receives the message that you are experiencing pain, and, virtually instantaneously, you react – jerking away from the source of the pain.

7. Your Brain Uses 20% of The Oxygen You Breathe

It’s amazing to think that while our brain makes up only about two percent of our body mass, it needs around twenty percent of the oxygen we breathe in order to keep functioning.

It’s because of this that we die so easily when we are deprived of oxygen. Without the brain functioning, all those little messages that race around our bodies all day, every day, won’t reach their destinations. This means the organs and cells of your body will shut down very soon after you’ve been deprived of oxygen, even if only for a few minutes.

Again, the parallels with computers are there: if your laptop runs low on battery power, it will go into standby mode. Just like the brain first enters a comatose state. If power (or oxygen) remains scarce, the computer (and your brain) shut down. That’s when we are brain dead.

6. Higher IQ = More Dreams

It’s a proven fact that the higher your IQ (Intelligence Quotient) the more you dream. Scientists studying the phenomenon of dreams have discovered that while everyone dreams, the frequency of dreams is notably higher in those of above average intelligence.

Of course, if you never seem to dream, don’t take that as a sign of a lack of intelligence. Research has also shown that in many instances, your dreams last only a few seconds, hardly long enough to even register. Then again, most of us don’t remember any of our dreams, and it’s usually only for a few fleeting seconds, when we have been awoken in the middle of a dream, that we even remember them at all!

Which is why, if you decide to explore the meaning of your dreams, you’re told to keep a pen and paper right next to your bed, so that you can write down what you dream as you wake up. Leave it a few moments, and most of the ordinary dreams we have will disappear like mist.

While on the topic of dreams too, no one knows exactly why we dream what we do, or how dreams work, but it’s been thought that they are your subconscious mind’s way of communicating with the lucid or conscious part of the brain.

5. Your Brain Is More Active at Night

Strange as it may seem, your brain actually shows more activity at night than during the day.

Despite all the moving around, thinking, and complex calculations you do every day, your brain actually shows more activity at night than it does during the day. In fact, when you shut down at night, to go to sleep, your brain wakes up, and starts doing it’s thing.

Of course, we still don’t quite know what it’s thing is, since scientists are still puzzled as to exactly what it is that your brain works so hard at every night, but it’s certainly got something to do with all those dreams you’re dreaming.

So, it stands to reason, that if you want to give your brain a workout, you should go to sleep, and it also explains why getting enough sleep is so important to staying mentally sharp.

4. Not All Neurons are Created Equal

While it’s true that most of the information in your body is whizzing about at breakneck speed most of the time, there are some types of neurons that take their time to transport information back and forth.

Not only do different neurons process different types of information, and in different ways, but, in fact, some types of neurons transport information as slowly as half a meter per second, or 1.8 kilometers per hour, while others can reach the unheard of velocities of up to one hundred and twenty meters per second or up to four hundred and thirty two kilometers per hour.

It all depends on the type of neuron, and the type of information being carried, how fast it’s transmitted around your body, and to your brain.

3. Neurons Keep Growing

For many years, scientists and researchers thought that neurons, the brain, and your central nervous system, cannot regenerate, or grow. Basically, the concept was that we are stuck with what we’ve got.

That’s all changed though, and although they have discovered that the brain and it’s complex network of neurons does not behave in quite the same way as the other tissues in the body, they can, and do, regenerate.

We’re still not quite sure how to use this regeneration to treat disease and disorders of the brain and nervous system though, and it does mean that the fields of neural study are more complex than they were formerly thought to be.

What this does mean is that even though brain or nerve damage is still a very bad thing, there is, potentially, a remedy for this type of damage, and, with enough research, and in time, we should be able to cure most, if not all types of brain and nervous system damage.

2. Your Brain is 80% Water

Just as we need oxygen to keep our brain’s complex electrical processes going, we need water to keep our own personal super computers in good working order.

Have you ever experienced a headache, only to discover that an aspirin, and a glass of water, does the trick? There’s a good chance it was not the aspirin, but the water, that did that.

Our brains, far from being the solid, stiff grey mass we see in movies and on TV medical shows, is actually a squishy, pinkish, jelly like organ, that has many blood vessels and is made up of around eighty percent water. It’s only after the brain is removed, and starts to dry out, that it begins to become the solid mass we’re more familiar with.

When the brain and the tissues around it becomes dehydrated, and the membranes around it begin to chafe, causing inflammation. We experience that as pain, which explains your headache. That also explains the splitting headache that so often accompanies a hangover – alcohol is a diuretic, which causes dehydration, so it takes water away from your whole body, including your brain.

So, when your mother told you to drink eight glasses of water every day, she wasn’t joking – you don’t only need it for your body, but for your brain too.

1. Your Brain Does Not Feel Pain

Your brain processes every sensation, including pain, that you experience every day, but did you know that the brain itself has no pain receptors? This means that the actual brain tissue, or grey matter as we like to call it, cannot experience pain.

Of course, there are lots of tissues and membranes, as well as bone and other types of tissue that surround your brain, so if you bump your head, or experience any other sort of injury, you will most certainly still feel it!

It is also these tissues, when dehydrated, which can cause the dreaded “headache” although many other factors, including tension or even bad posture, can cause you to have a headache.

So, while you could potentially damage your brain without even being aware of it, the tissues, bone and membrane’s that surround your brain do the job of alerting it to danger. Just another way nature has been brilliant in protecting you!

The creatures have been judged on their prowess, their incredible attributes and their success as species.

10. The Malheur National Forest Fungus

This fungus is so large that it has claimed the title of the largest organism on the planet. Whilst the Great Barrier Reef is actually a collection of separate organisms, this fungus is linked underground effectively making it one huge mushroom. It is so large that it spans 9 square kilometres (2,200 acres) of the Malheur National Forrest in Oregon. On the surface, this vast fungal colony is not so impressive to look at, sprouting only small visible mushrooms, but belowground it is the largest fungal colony in existence.

9. Paraceratherium

The largest land mammal in history, the Paraceratherum lived in Asia around 20 million years ago. At seven and a half meters (25 ft) tall they were larger than any species of mammoth and weighed as much as an average sized sauropod dinosaur. This height was used to take leaves from the tops of trees in the lush forests in which they lived.

Despite appearing to be something of a cross between an elephant and a giraffe, Paraceratherum were actually related to rhinos. Many believe that they would have carried the same thickly armored hides as their modern progenitors, making them both big and tough. During their time on earth there were no predators capable of taking down this massive beast.

8. The Cockroach

Ah, the cockroach, one of the humblest of nature’s creations. It’s hardly the most beautiful creature on Earth, nor the smartest or the most fearsome predator. But it is a survivor.

It is widely believed that cockroaches are capable of surviving a nuclear war. Whilst they are not as resistant to the effects of radiation as some other insects, it is true that they are fifteen times more resistant than humans. Cockroaches also have other amazing abilities, like being able to go without oxygen for up to 45 minutes. They can also survive without food for a month and are capable of eating almost anything, including the glue on the back of stamps. It’s not pretty but if it works don’t knock it.

To date, around 4,000 distinct species of cockroach have been identified.

7. Hadrosaurs

The term Hadrosaur refers to members of the Hadrosaurid family of dinosaurs. There are several distinct species of Hadrosaur, which results from the incredible success of Hadrosaurs throughout the age of the dinosaurs. Hadrosaurs became the most common family of dinosaurs and lived in huge herds across the world. They were preyed upon by many carnivorous species but their numbers rarely diminished. Because of this they have been called the cattle of the dinosaur era.

The incredible success of the Hadrosaur comes from the unique jaw structure by which they can be identified. Hadrosaur jaws were elongated and flat, leading to the nickname ‘duck billed dinosaurs’. These contained literally thousands of teeth and were perfect for chewing plants. Combined with a long digestive tract, stored between the hallmark wide hips, this made hadrosaurs capable of eating plants that other dinosaurs could not, particularly waxy needles. Hadrosaurs are also thought to have eaten rotten wood to extract the nutrients of the fungus living inside. Other dinosaurs relied largely on stomach stones to digest their food but with chewing down to an art, Hadrosaurs had the energy needed to outrun its predators. They also sought safety in numbers, living in large herds. Some scientists speculate that these would have stripped an area clean of plant life before moving off.

Hadrosaurs varied greatly in size. Most were capable of walking on either two or four legs and could lift themselves on their larger back legs to reach higher food sources. The major difference between Hadrosaur species is the presence (or lack of) a cranial crests, protruding from the backs of their skulls. These were thought to be decorative and sexual in function, hence their variation between species of Hadrosaur.

Hadrosaurs have also been called ‘bird hipped’ dinosaurs as they share a common hip configuration with birds. The Hadrosaur family was not one of the species that evolved into modern birds but this was crucial in proving the common ancestry between dinosaurs and modern birds.

Hadrosaurs were most common during the Cretaceous era (which is when their evolved eating habits and digestive capabilities would have been most useful) when their numbers would have been in the billions.

6. The Terror Birds

Sounds ridiculous, right? Birds were only ever scary in the Alfred Hitchcock film and hardly then. But believe it or not the dominant predators in South America for 60 million years were in fact birds. Giant, 10 foot tall, flightless terror birds. It is thought that terror birds evolved from the dinosaurs and hunted the plains and forests of South America from shortly after the fall of the dinosaurs to only two million years ago. These birds also spread into North America and the largest specimen has been found in Texas. In 2006, a skull was discovered in Patagonia. This skull is believed to belong to a previously unknown species of terror bird, and scientists predict that it would have been capable of swallowing an averagely sized dog.

Terror birds were big, vicious and fast. Although scientists cannot be sure, they estimate that the larger of the terror birds would have been capable of speeds in excess of 30 miles per hour.

South America was not the only place to have been home to giant birds. Aside from the Ostrich and Emu, Australia has been home to many large birds throughout history. These would have no doubt been encountered by the early inhabitants of the area. In New Zealand, early Polynesian settlers came across the Moa, twelve foot tall, herbivorous birds. Amazingly these lasted until around 1500, when they were hunted to extinction. Unbelievably, until the arrival of the Maori, the Moa were hunted by a species of giant eagle. The Haast’s Eagle had a wingspan of ten feet and was the largest eagle to have ever lived.

5. Tyrannosaurus Rex

The Tyrannosaurus Rex or T-Rex was one of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs and, as such, one of the largest land predators to have ever existed. The name means ‘tyrannical lizard king’ and has helped in the public perception of the T-Rex as the most badass of all the dinosaurs. It is widely believed that the T-Rex was natures greatest ever predator, although some now believe that it was actually a very large scavenger.

Members of the Tyrannosaurus family have been found all around the world but the T-Rex lived particularly in what is now western North America. They would have lived alongside Ceratopsians, such as the Triceratops. They would most likely have preyed mostly upon large herds of Hadrosaurs, although some believe that all Tyrannosaurids were primarily scavengers. Tyrannosaurs are considered to be unique amongst carnivorous dinosaurs for their tiny forelimbs, huge skulls and short snouts.

The Tyrannosaurus Rex was the largest of the Tyrannosaurids. The largest specimen ever discovered measured 12.8 meters (48ft) long and 4 meters (13ft) tall at the hips. The largest T-Rex skull is 1.5 meters (5ft) long and the largest tooth is 30 centimeters long (including the root), the longest tooth of any dinosaur. Despite it’s size, the T-Rex was also an incredibly fast creature, although scientist debate exactly how fast.

The T-Rex lived in the late cretaceous period, meaning that it was around for the big extinction that wiped out almost all of the dinosaurs.

4. Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus

The Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus was a large carnivorous dinosaur, distinguishable for its crocodilian jaw and the large sail believed to have protruded from its back. This sail was supported by bone protrusions from the vertebrae and may have been used as a sexual display, similar to a peacocks tail. As such it may have been brightly colored or flushed with blood.

The Spinosaurus lived in North Africa and, at 16-18 meters (52-59ft) and weighing up to 10 tons, is the largest carnivorous dinosaur ever discovered. As such it is possibly the largest carnivorous land animal to have ever existed. It is believed that it died out in the early cretaceous period. However, a lack of evidence makes any supposition about this creature difficult.

The Spinosaurus Aegypticus (or ‘Egyptian Spine Lizard’) was discovered by German paleontologistErnst Stromer who unearthed its skeleton in the Egyptian desert in 1912. Unfortunately, many of the bones were damaged in transit to Germany and later the remaining bones were destroyed by an Allied bombing raid during World War II. The lack of material evidence pertaining to the Spinosaurus, combined with its unlikely size and appearance, has cast doubt over its existence for many years. However, recent finds in Morocco are believed to be of the same species or a closely related subspecies.

3. The Crocodile

The crocodile is the oldest living predator in existence. It has survived for millions of years, unchanged since the time of the dinosaurs and is still considered to be one of the most lethal killers in nature. The fact that it has barely evolved at all in millions of years is proof that it’s design is so perfect and so efficient that it cannot be improved upon. Crocodiles are essentially a trap animal, like most spiders. They lay in wait for their prey, meaning that they need expend no more energy than is necessary. It is probably this strategy that allowed them to survive the extinction events that wiped out the dinosaurs, and to survive the cold of the ice age too.

In their 200 million years, the only way in which crocodiles have changed is their size. Some members of the crocodile family have adapted to be smaller than others, the alligator included. This is a common trend. Millions of years ago there would have been many other larger species of crocodile. The largest recorded modern crocodile was approximately 25 feet in length, but fossil records show that they were once much larger. Crocodiles and Alligators are found across the globe, wherever a suitable habitat can be found.

2. Mankind

It would be naive not to think that mankind is not one of nature’s greatest creations. However it would be equally naive to think that humans are the greatest creature to ever walk the earth. Relatively speaking, mankind is a new addition to the Earth and, although we have made great advances in almost every field, we have yet to prove ourselves in the greater scheme of things. Scientific learning and artistic expression are very interesting and all, but they are unlikely to save you in a battle against a T-Rex. Advanced weaponry is a huge step forward, granted, and has been mans best friend ever since the development of the spear. But can it really compare to some of natures other great creations?

Of course mankind is a great species. How could we describe ourselves as anything but? We have the ability to predict the weather, to alter the landscape and to travel to other worlds. We are also now on the verge of creating other forms of life, by means of genetic manipulation and advanced robotics. But nature is about one thing and one thing alone: survival. We are the first species to have the ability to destroy ourselves and that surely can’t be a good thing. As we have become more advanced we have also become more fragile, becoming too dependent on our complex society and complex technological systems. It is widely believed that something as simple as the breakdown of our communication infrastructure could doom us to extinction. For all of our advances can we really say that we could withstand the natural disasters that other species have faced? Can we say with certainty that we will still exist in several million years time, unaltered and still kicking ass like the crocodiles? Only time will tell.

One consolation is that if mankind does become extinct, we will leave behind a legacy in the form of our great buildings and monuments. However, recent thoughts on this matter are that within one thousand years of mans extinction, almost all evidence of our civilization will have crumbled away. Buildings will crumble, cars will rust and nature will simply get to work on it’s next great innovation.

Mankind is great, yes, but by no means are we eternal.

1. Ants and Termites

Despite common belief, ants and termites are not closely related. Both live in complex social structures and have evolved into cast systems, comprising of workers, soldiers and breeders. But despite their similarities, ants are actually more closely related to wasps than they are to termites. However, the two species are both categorized in the order Hymenoptera because of their tiered social structure. Ant colonies typically have only one queen capable of breeding but termites often have an entire army of breeders.

Whilst ants have clearly won the turf war between the two, termites are clearly the greatest builders. Their nests are usually built in the branches of trees and form into mounds over time. Some termite mounds are built in ingenious sail, or gravestone shapes. These always face north-south so that the catch the morning and evening sun but stay cool during the day. Termite nests are specially designed so as to provide an air-conditioned effect, and to collect condensation for the termites to drink. Termite mounds also often contain special chambers for growing fungi. Some species of ant also farm fungus and will collect leaves for the fungus to absorb. Termite colonies can contain thousands, sometimes millions of termites. They can be compared to huge, eco-friendly and perfectly ordered cities.

Some ants also farm caterpillars. The caterpillars are herded to feeding areas during the day and are kept inside the ants nest at night. They produce honeydew when massaged by the ants. A similar relationship exists with some aphids, who produce a sugary substance on demand when tapped by the ant’s antennae.

With ant and termite populations around the world being so high, and their civilizations being so perfectly evolved, it could be said that it is these species that truly rule the world. As farmers, scavengers and hunters they are highly skilled and can find food in even the most desolate of environments. Vast armies protect their colonies from invaders and even larger armies of workers are capable of acting as one large organism. When the different castes of ant and termite work together there is nothing they cannot achieve.

Of course, that’s pretty respectable, if not ideal, and most of us bid our final farewells with a few things still on our to do list, and quite a few more that we’ve done, either intentionally or not.

The saying “life’s too short” sums it up nicely. In fact, whether we lived a hundred years, or even two hundred, life would still be too short to learn everything, achieve everything and do everything we’d like to do. Humans aspire to learn, to experience and to know, and it’s because of this that we’re usually so selective of how we spend our time – anything not worth the time and effort usually makes a swift exit from out to do list, to be replaced with something that better serves our purpose in life.

It’s this quest for knowledge that helped us get to the top of the food chain, and stay there. Sure, there are Galapagos tortoises that live to 177, but I’ve never seen them do a quadratic equation, or learn to drive. So there you have it. Humans spend the relatively short term they’re given on earth gaining and applying knowledge, aspiring to new heights and building complex social networks.

There are some animals though, that don’t have that luxury. Whose life spans are so curtailed by nature that they hardly have a chance to do anything? One common thread that runs through the issue of life expectancy is that the smaller an animal is, the shorter it’s life it likely to be, interestingly enough, which is why all the animals you’ll find on this list are a lot smaller than humans!

Here are the ten shortest lived animals, and the life spans they expect.

10. The Rabbit

• Life Expectancy: 5 years

Beloved pets of children the world over, the domestic rabbit does not, unfortunately, enjoy a long life. In fact, with the longest living tipping the scales at around five years, their lives are quite short indeed.

Rabbits have compensated for this short lifespan, like their other short lived compatriots, by becoming prolific breeders. The saying “breeding like rabbits” is certainly true, and in some parts of the world, like Australia, where they were introduced artificially, and have no natural predators, they have become a plague, breeding unchecked. Of course, Australians tried to counteract this, and other plagues, by introducing other predatory animals, like the cat, which only resulted in the uncontrolled breeding of the cat, and a resulting plague of cats.

But the common domestic rabbit or bunny is certainly a favorite of children, in real life and in stories, with classics such as Beatrix Potter’s tales immortalizing the rabbit, and movies and books like Watership down doing much to grow this cuddly creature’s reputation.

9. Hamsters and Guinea Pigs

• Life Expectancy: 4 years

Those favorite elementery school pets, hamsters, and their larger cousins, guinea pigs, come in at a joint nineth place on the list, with life expectencies of between two and four years.

Hamsters, typically Syrian hamsters, the most common variety kept as pets, begin reproducing young, at around a month or two. From there, they can continue to breed, several times a year, bearing litters of multiple young.

These cute and cuddly little creatures are probably best known for their ability to store food in the pockets in their cheeks, and for their love of running on the hamster wheel. Anyone unlucky enough to have borne their ire will attest that their bite is another characteristic, being remarkably strong for such a small animal.

The guinea pig or Cavy looks a lot like an overgrown hamster, and although they aren’t a fan of the wheel, they do make a distinctive whistling sound when excited or alarmed.

8. The House Mouse

• Life Expectancy: 1 – 3 years avg

Such a small creature, yet the bane of many a homeowner around the world. These little creatures have prompted humans to have cats as pets, and sparked invention by the creators of the mousetrap. They’re notoriously difficult to find and remove once they’ve entrenched themselves in a home, and are prolific breeders.

Tiny as they are, they strike fear into the hearts of many, and can jump, climb, run, and even swim, remarkably well given their size. Interestingly enough, house mice do not see in color, although their hearing far outstrips humans, being able to hear even ultrasound waves!

Adult females can breed every fifteen to twenty one days, come into estrus as soon as they are exposed to male urine, and can bear 5 to 10 young per litter, which may explain their phenomenal success as a species!

In spite of this, they are a favorite snack to many predators in the wild, and exterminated by humans as vermin, meaning their life cycle is in the region of one to three years.

7. Mosquito Fish

• Life Expectancy: 2 years

This little fish, also known as Gambusia, hail from the Gulf of Mexico, where they live out their short lives, of around two years.

What really makes them interesting is that even though they are so short lived, they manage to break many conventions during that time. For one thing, they are very hardy for their size. They can survive in very saline waters, where other fish would not, and for short periods of time, in water that is up to forty two degrees Celsius.

The female mosquito fish, unlike most mammalian females, is larger than the male, reaching a maximum length of around seven centimeters to the male’s four. They also, like guppies, and a few other fish species, bear live young. This results in a higher life expectancy for those young, meaning they are quite prolific.

Given that they also breed three or four times in a season, bearing young numbering between 50 and 100 each time, this is one little fish that seems determined to endure.

6. Brine Shrimp, Opossums and Chameleons

• Life Expectancy: ~1 years

An odd combination to be sure, but they share one common trait – each has a lifespan of only a year.

The first, the brine shrimp, is a type of crustacean, found only in salt water lakes. These poor little relatives of the crab and lobster have only one year on earth. They are, like many of their short lived compatriots, prolific procreators, but of course, when you’re tiny, tasty, and short lived, that’s essential to the survival of your species!

Usually, the shortest life spans are the preserve of insects and simpler animals, however, researchers have also found a species of chameleon, those color changing reptiles, known as Labord’s chameleon, in Madagascar, the large Indian Ocean island off the coast of Africa, that share a similar life cycle. These creatures hatch in November each year, just before the onset of the rainy season, mature rapidly and mate by January or February of the following year.

Before the next generation of chameleons emerges from their eggs to begin the annual cycle again, the entire adult population dies.

Last on the list, and rare at this extreme lower end of the life span scale, is a mammal – the North American opossum.

This little creature, native to American, is a small, around cat sized animal, with an almost white furred face, a rat like prehensile tail, which allows young opossums to hang upside down, and grey fur on its body. It’s an odd looking creature, with even stranger habits, and it’s one of the shortest lived mammals on the planet.

Another unique feature of this little critter is that, like humans, it has an opposable “thumb” on it’s hind feet, making it an excellent grasper. Of course, since it also has the lowest brain to body weight ratio of mammals, it’s unlikely to challenge the human position of dominance over other animals any time soon.

While it’s true that the maximum life span of this creature can run to four years, so many of them die in their first year of life that it’s fair to say that the average life expectancy is around a year.

5. Dragonfly

• Life Expectancy: 4 Months

Like miniature helicopters, these often beautiful insects hover over ponds in summer, the sun glinting off their metallic carapaces as they live out their short lives, going about the business of eating and breeding.

And short those lives are. Although some species may remain in the pupal stage for up to five years, awaiting the perfect conditions to break free, and begin their lives, their actual time on earth, alive, and interacting with the world around them is limited to around four months.

So next time you see a hovering dragonfly, make a point of appreciating it’s beauty. It took a long time to hatch, and before the season turns, it will be gone.

4. Houseflies and Bees

• Life Expectancy: 4 Weeks

Tied for fourth place, are two of the most common insects in the world. Both the ordinary housefly and the worker bee live around four or five weeks in total. These winged creatures live incredibly short, but immensely busy lives.

Consider that house fly eggs can turn into larvae, or maggots, within as little as twenty four hours, and that those larvae become flies in a few days more, then it’s on to take up the family business – eating and breeding.

And while the housefly’s sole purpose in life seems to be to irritate humans, while feeding and breeding, the poor worker bees, all female, spend their extra short life doing exactly what their name implies: working for the good of the hive.

If that wasn’t bad enough, if they do their hively duty, and deter attackers by stinging them, they cut their already short lifespan down, since they die when the stinger is ripped free. No wonder we have killer bees. They’re probably just mad at how unfair life is!

3. Drone Ants

• Life Expectancy: 3 Weeks

Unlike their working female compatriots, the male ant or drone, lives a life of luxury, albeit it briefly.

From the moment they hatch, their sole purpose in life is to eat, and breed. Usually hatched around the same time as the breeding females, they take flight when the reproductive season begins, along with their male and female breeding counterparts, only to mate in flight.

While the female breeding ants then go on to seek out a suitable location to establish a colony, and do just that, the drone, life’s work completed, expires. From start to finish, the poor old drone ant has only a few weeks on earth.

It’s seems the trade off for the drone’s life of lazy luxury is to die young, although, during that time, they are spared the hardship of work. Somehow, that does not seem like a good deal to me.

2. Gastrotrichs

• Life Expectancy: 3 Days

The gastrotrich is actually a type of animal: marine or fresh water micro organisms, with a maximum size of just three millimeters. There are many different types, but all live incredibly short lives.

Their lives are uneventful too, spent floating among the sediment in their watery home, occasionally attaching themselves to a surface for a while, before loosening themselves once more to drift on the currents, eating, and little else.

In spite of this laid back, relaxed attitude to existence, these little creatures typically have a lifespan of on average, only three days.

1. Mayflies

• Life Expectancy: 1 – 24 Hours

Despite being prolific, with over two and a half thousand known species scattered across the globe, the Mayfly depends on quantity, rather than quality of life for their survival on earth.

These aquatic insects have the shortest lifespan known, with their life expectancy ranging from just a half an hour to one day, depending on their species. In fact, their sole purpose in life is to hatch, and reproduce.

Think about that the next time you lament the brevity of life! It could be far, far worse. In fact, if you were a Mayfly, you might not even have made it through this article before you shuffled off your mortal coil.

10. Horology, the study of time devices

Yes, there is a specialty field devoted to timekeeping devices–it’s called horology. And, in fact, it’s very popular throughout the world. Horologists study everything from sundials to atomic clocks. Actually, anyone interested in time devices can be called horologists, so the field includes people like watchmakers and collectors in addition to scholars of ancient time measuring techniques. Horology is often thought of as a very intellectual field of study. In fact, horology museums and libraries devoted to timekeeping devices, especially clocks, are common the world over.
There are also many horological societies around the globe, most of which boast large memberships. A few of the biggest groups include the Antiquarian Horological Society in the United Kingdom and The National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, an American organization. Maybe you’re an horologist too. If you have a big watch collection or are just really interested in time keeping, you qualify.

9. Some Philosophers Consider Time to be Unreal

Throughout history, there have always been a few outlying thinkers who decide that time doesn’t exist. They’ve said that time is a measure invented by humans or an illusion of the brain. In general, philosophers who think that time is unreal recognize it as an object independent of the human mind; they tend to disregard the reality of anything not rooted in the mind, hence the belief that time is made up. “Unreal” time, then, is based more on an argument about what is real and what isn’t, rather than a discussion of time’s qualities.

The unreal argument all started with Antiphon, an ancient Greek teacher and philosopher. Antiphon declared that time and reality aren’t the same things; he said that time was a concept, not to be confused with the real world. Later, another Greek philosopher, Parmenides, said that time is just an illusion. The time-is-an-illusion idea caught on; later in history, some factions of Buddhist monks adopted the same theory in their philosophy.
The most famous of the time-is-unreal philosophers is probably Immanual Kant, who, in A Critique of Pure Reason argued that time is not a substance but an element of a systematic framework used to shape human experience. Some more modern Western philosophers adhered to the illusory time idea as well, but it mostly died out after the advent of modern physics.

8. Time Travel isn’t Just a Fictional Idea

H.G. Wells popularized traveling through time in his 1895 novel, The Time Machine. But although it is a common plot device in fiction, time travel may not be confined to the world of make believe. In fact, traveling in time is a hot topic for many physicists, and most agree that forward travel, at least, is theoretically possible. Einstein’s theory of relativity makes it seem very likely that we could travel forward in time if we could find a way to create a high enough velocity.

As far as traveling to the past goes, physicists are stumped. Some say the past time travel could be possible, but that direction is far more problematic. Theoretically, accelerating space faster than time would result in backward time travel, but philosophers aren’t sure if that would be possible. To travel backward in time would mean to violate the laws of cause and effect, and scientists don’t know if the laws of physics would allow it. The theory of time travel remains unproven. We just don’t know if we could move in time or not. But, for now at least, the possibility is still out there. The experience of time travel, however, is better left for fiction.

7. It’s all in our Perception

Most people think of time in terms of past, present, and future. But although this concept seems like an undeniable truth, it’s actually culturally related. The Hopi people of the American Southwest originally had no words for time as we know it. They thought of time as circular; in that view, there is no past or present because the circle of time has no end. As we move through life, we experience many ages, all of which repeat for other people as they go through their own lives.

Other cultures also subscribed to the circular time outlook, including the Mayans, ancient Hindi speakers, Buddhists, and the Incans. Interestingly, these cultural groups were some of the first to invent calendars. Could it be that they were onto something?

6. The Power of Cesium

Cesium is one of the most important elements in your day-to-day life, but you’ve probably never even heard of it beyond looking at its box on the periodic table. What’s so great about this element? It turns out that the unchanging transition period of a cesium atom is exactly equivalent to one second. Since 1997, cesium has been the standard for measuring time. Unlike solar or lunar-based measurements, cesium seconds don’t change with latitude or altitude. So nowadays, the official time all around the world is measured according to cesium atoms. Who knew that this little element was responsible for so much?

5. Saeculum

We’re all familiar with standard time measurements like minutes, hours, days, years, etc. But you’ve probably never heard of some of the less common time measure words. Some time words, like fortnight, have just fallen out of use. Others have always been obsure. For example, “saeculum” denotes a length of time in which the population of a given place is renewed. If a big event were to happen in a country, one saeculum would have passed when everyone alive for that event had died. To put it in context, we’re almost near the end of the 19th century saeculum. Soon, no one alive in the 1800s will still be living. Saeculum was first used by the Etruscans and became popular in early Roman times, but it’s not used often it’s such a relative term.

Another time word you probably haven’t heard: shake. A shake is an informal measure word that’s equivalent to 10 nanoseconds, and unless you work in physics, you likely have no need for this term. You probably don’t use “jiffy” very often in a precise context either. For most people, jiffy just means fast. But the term does have specific meanings too. In physics, jiffy is defined at the time it takes for light to travel one Fermi, or about 3×10-29.

4. Daylight Saving Time doesn’t Really Save

In the map above, the blue areas use Daylight Saving Time, the orange areas no longer use it, and the red areas never used it.

Although it was developed to save energy on incandescent lighting, daylight saving time doesn’t really do much in terms of conserving electricity. In fact, some studies show that DST causes greater energy consumption. The idea behind DST is that adjusting time to take advantage of daylight hours would reduce the need for residential lighting in the evenings. But as it turns out, most homes’ lighting use doesn’t depend on the sun. And since the onset of more modern lighting technology, DST’s theories no longer apply very well. Daylight saving time does do some good, however. Some studies have shown a decreased number of car accidents during savings months. And retail stores generally fare better with more afternoon daylight too.
If daylight savings doesn’t save us energy, why, then, do we still use it? The practice remains controversial, and there really is no clear reason why it’s still in place. Most likely, countries continue to use DST because people are used to it. Also, many people prefer the light schedule associated with DST, even though it’s somewhat inconvenient to switch clocks. Still, some countries have switched from using saving time. And within, countries, time usage will vary from place to place. For example, in the United States, Arizona does not use DST, although all other states do. The same is true for Manitoba in Canada; although most other provinces use Daylight Saving Time, Manitoba, the central province, does not. All the variation around the world can be extremely confusing, especially for people travelling from place to place on a quick vacation.

3. Time is Old, but Clock Technology isn’t

The concept of time dates back as far as recorded history, probably longer. But measuring time is a newer invention. Sundials and water clocks were the first measuring devices, but both of these were inaccurate. Mechanical clocks made their debut in Europe in the Middle Ages; many of these transferred technology from water clocks onto the new weight-based design. Clock making boomed in Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries as clocks were built into buildings in many cities. Most of these clocks only used an hour hand, and many of them told time according to ecclesiastical needs. Not until the pendulum was invented in 1656 were clocks close to accurate.

2. It’s Five Minutes to Midnight on the Doomsday Clock

The “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.” Since its inception, the Doomsday Clock has been on the cover of every issue.

The Doomsday Clock is a metaphorical measure of time that estimates how close humanity is to self destruction, represented by midnight. The Clock was first set in 1947, and it is maintained to this day by the board of directors under the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. Originally, the clock was set at seven minutes to midnight and represented the threat of nuclear war. Nowadays, however, the Doomsday Clock is directed at the possibility of self destruction by global climate change. The clock is adjusted every so often to reflect the changing times; the last change took place on January 17, 2007.

The current position of five minutes to midnight seems catastrophic, but it’s actually not as close to destruction as the clock one read. During the height of the Cold War, from 1953 to 1960, the clock was set at two minutes to midnight. The farthest it ever was from midnight was 17 minutes from 1991 to 1995, when the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Agreement ending the Cold War.

1. Time is Different Everywhere you go

People notate time differently all around the world. And, although we follow a standard time for world business, the time in a country is variable. It doesn’t really equate to solar time, especially during daylight saving time. Time zones were created to tell time according to each area’s own “noon,” or time when the sun is highest. But due to political boundaries and DST, the sun isn’t always at its peak when the clock reads noon. Some places keep their clocks as much as three-and-a-half hours ahead or behind solar time!
Alaska is a particularly good example of a place where solar time and clock time never match. Alaska is a huge state, spanning more than one idealized time zone. But to keep time uniform there, the U.S. decided to have the whole state follow “Alaska Time.” In Nome, Alaska, a very Western city in the state, is more than three hours ahead of the sun in the summer time. The same is true in China. All of the massive country follows the same time zone, so the solar noon can occur as late as 3 p.m. in some Eastern areas.

While I was with the DOE in the ‘90’s I was probably seen as a bit of a nerd because of my passion for the subject. However with the expense and national exposure of the ongoing Iraq war and a presidential election, the average American is far more educated about the incredible expense both monetary terms and more importantly in the cost of human life that Americans must pay for our energy requirements.

There are plenty of alternatives out there for us. Unfortunately, in most cases the cost of implementing new technology is a hurdle that can be very tough to overcome.

10. Your Body

Our bodies are amazing, efficient machines. There is however several ways to cash in our movements to create clean, green electricity. Several personal power generating devices are currently being researched. A knee brace looking device that cashes in on your natural knee movement that does not inhibit the wearer in any way. A backpack that produces power from the natural bounce you create when you walk, and even clothing that can power your personal electronic devices from any movement you make through a piezoelectric process that current technology has allowed to be shrunk down so small that it can be sewn into fabric.

The currently used version of these high tech human powered generators are special floor panels that convert the energy absorbed by human foot traffic to power parts of the building in which they are installed. There are several such experimental places already being used around the world right now. Just by walking out of a Tokyo subway, you are unknowingly helping to power the information monitors within the train station.

9. Solar Cells

These solar cells have been around for years. For all that time, there have always been two major obstacles that prevent them for being practical for mass use. Inefficiency, and the cost to payback ratio. These old style panels are costly to produce, don’t produce much power to square inch, and are virtually useless in cloudy weather.

Recent advances in this field are overcoming these obstacles. One American company has discovered a way to produce a thin plastic film that works the same as the old style panels for a fraction of the cost. Being more versatile and far less expensive makes them more practical. More exciting is current developments made by New Zealand researchers. They have discovered a new ‘dye’ based system that is so efficient that they can work well even in cloudy conditions. Their production costs are also a fraction of the old style solar voltaic cells.

8. HHO Generators

How would you like to run your gasoline powered car on water? Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it. Well not only is it possible, people have been doing it all over the world for many years. We all know what water is. Two parts Hydrogen and one part Oxygen. All you have to do is separate these two atoms from each other and you have two very flammable explosive gasses! Separating atoms sounds difficult, but the process is very simple. Simply add direct current electricity to plain water. Hydrogen is attracted to one side while oxygen is attracted to the other. They both bubble up to the top in their separated gaseous forms into what is known as “Browns gas”. Pipe this explosive gas into the air intake of your car, and you will immediately see an increase in gas mileage.

Just do a search on the internet for ‘HHO Generator’ and you will find many companies selling kits and products for this old technology that you can retrofit to your car next weekend.

7. Wind Power

Converting the energy in wind to electricity is certainly not new. It has been around for years. With the advent of cheaper stronger materials and better electronics plus the ability to plug directly into our current infrastructure makes this one of the most currently viable alternative energy sources out there.

6. Nuclear Fission

Nuclear fission is the process of breaking atoms apart and harnessing the energy to produce electricity. There are these types of nuclear power plants in operation all over the world today so why would I consider this and alternative energy source? The answer is simple. We don’t utilize this power source nearly as much as we should. We are still a nation that burns coal to produce the bulk of its electricity. The problem is that with the threats of the cold war, the horrible images we have seen from Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the tragedies at 3 mile island and Chernobyl have embedded our society with such fear of nuclear energy that nobody is willing to have a nuclear power plant anywhere near them. When you ignore our irrational fears, consider the fuel that goes into these technological wonders. Then consider the waste and pollution in comparison to the energy output, nuclear energy is actually exponentially cleaner and safer than coal.

5. Tidal Energy

Since the tides are more predictable than wind or the clouds that can block the sun, tidal energy generators are gaining wide popularity and are currently in use in a small scale around the world. As technology evolves, so does the viability of wider scale generation of electricity from the tides. Tidal energy harnesses the ‘in and out’ forces of the oceans. The most popular device to harness this natural motion is the turbine. Very similar to wind turbines they convert the flow of water into electricity as the tide moves in and then away.

4. Wave Power

Although they appear similar in concept, wave power is different from tidal energy. In the case of wave power generation, the concept is the up and down motion that a wave exerts on a buoy that converts this oscillating motion into mechanical energy which is then used to power a generator. Tidal energy harnesses the ‘in and out’ forces of the oceans. A wave power farm is currently being constructed off the coast of Oregon.

3. Geothermal Energy

Heat is just one form of energy. We burn fuel to heat our homes. We burn coal to heat water into steam then convert that energy into electricity. If you have heat you have power. Well you are currently standing on one massive ball of heat. You don’t have to dig far into the earth to notice that the temperature starts to rise.

Although fairly rare in the U.S. harnessing geothermal energy is common place in Canada and other countries. In its most basic form, water is pumped down into the earth where it is warmed up then pumped back up and through a heat exchanger that removes the heat energy and uses it to heat homes.

In the more complex version, water is pumped farther down into the crust where it is hot enough to boil the water and the resulting steam is then harnessed to turn generators for electricity. British Columbia and New Zealand have been producing electricity this way for a long time and as technology improves, so does the practicality of geothermal energy in the United States.

2. Hydrogen Fuel Cell

By now you should have heard of this technology. It is in fact not new by any means. It has been in extensive use for years in Canada and many European countries.

In a nutshell, a hydrogen fuel cell works by converting the chemical reaction of joining hydrogen and oxygen atoms together to form water and producing clean quite electricity from it. In many ways, it performs the opposite of an HHO generator mentioned in #8.
There have been two major obstacles to allow this technology widespread use in America. The oil companies that make such massive profits from our use of fossil fuels in our cars, and the current infrastructure in place to deliver gasoline to Americans.

The oil companies do not want this technology anywhere near America. Americans spend almost $1 trillion dollars a year for oil and gasoline.
The ability to fill your car up with hydrogen would require that every gas station become a very different type of entity. The sheer cost of putting enough hydrogen fueling stations around America to make the hydrogen powered car practical is staggering.

When you consider that the only exhaust from a hydrogen fuel cell is clean water vapor, this form of energy can no longer be ignored. Every politician these days are now finding themselves in a position of having to acknowledge our need for something like this to power our vehicles.

1. Nuclear Fusion

Do not confuse this with nuclear fission. While our fission power plants harness the energy created when we split an atom, nuclear fusion harnesses the energy when combine like charged atoms to produce an atom with a heavier nucleus.

There are a couple of obstacles with this form of energy as well. The process of joining atoms although incredibly powerful is also extremely destructive. 80% of the energy released is in the form of radioactive neutrons which of course present a major safety concern. These neutrons also literally shred the reactor in which they are released to pieces from the inside out. In short, the mere process of fusion destroys itself from the inside out.
Till now that is.

It turns out that if we use Helium 3 as the fuel to power this fusion process, the radioactive waste and the destruction that happens to the reactor itself drops exponentially making it a very powerful, sustainable and very clean energy source. You could safely build a helium 3 fusion reactor in the center of a major city with no concerns.

But there is another obstacle that we must overcome. Helium 3 is the rarest substance on earth. In terms of the energy it is capable of producing compared to oil, helium 3 is currently worth about $4 billion a ton. Coal is currently worth about $40 a ton.

The reason helium 3 is so rare is that the our magnetic field and our atmosphere here on earth does such a great job of shielding us from solar winds and radiation found naturally in space. It is the sun and its radiation that produces helium 3.

For an interesting twist, it turns out that moon dust and rocks are far more valuable than the astronauts that brought them back could ever have imagined!

Because of the lack of atmosphere and magnetic field, the moon is literally covered in helium 3 because it has been getting beaten by solar winds and radiation for billions of years. It is estimated that one space shuttle load (25 tons) could power the entire United States for one year, and the estimated 1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon right now could meet the current energy needs of our entire planet for thousands of years.
This wonderful new technology has created a new space race. It is now worth the investment to go to the moon when helium 3 is worth $4billion a ton.

United States, Russia and China all currently have programs in the works to be mining the moon by 2020.

Although this technology is being utilized now more for research than anything else, the cost of the fuel compared to the output of power has made it impractical to use. But once the first few loads of interstellar dump trucks start returning to earth with loads of helium 3, expect to see these power plants popping up everywhere. And don’t be afraid, they really are safe.

20. Ayers Rock – Uluru

Located in the northern territory of Australia Ayers rock, called Uluru by the local Pitjantjatjara people, is 280 miles away from the nearest town and stretches 1,142 feet into the air and is 5 miles around! Made primarily of sandstone it was created from layers of sand that used to cover the centre of Australia itself. Years of pressure and hard weather molded it into the large sandstone, seen above, over the course of 500 million years. It is listed as a world heritage site. Among its wonders you can find springs, rock caves and ancient cave paintings. It is one of Australia’s most recognized sites and many visitors have stopped to watch it change color in the shifting light of the afternoon.

19. The Gunung Mulu National Park

Gunung Mulu National Park in the State of Sarawak in Borneo is one of the most amazing cave systems you can see and it is in fact the largest enclosed space on the planet. It is also a world heritage site that is teaching geologist a lot about the nature of the planet we all live on. Visitors can walk in illuminated caves that are said to be a truly inspirational sight. Surrounded by rainforest it has been a popular site for explorers and many of the adventures led here have managed to capture the public’s imagination. The current emphasis of the tourist industry however is promoting awareness and understanding of our planets ecosystems. Despite this it is still one of the hardest places to visit, although you can fly into a nearby airport and hike, or even take a 12-hour riverboat ride to the area. So if you are a bit of an adventurer or if you just really like the idea of a riverboat ride into an adventurer’s paradise Gunung Mulu National Park is the place for you!

18. Paricutin Volcano

This volcano is located in Mexico and is part of the Michoacán-Guanajuato Volcanic Field. What’s amazing about this natural wonder is that it sprung up, out of the ground you can say, underneath a cornfield in February 1943. (The farmer who owner the cornfield is named Dionisio Pulido). The fissure erupted and lava flowed from the opening, in the slow way lava does when it gets done erupting, until 1952! It eventually buried two whole villages in the region and you can still see some of the ruins of the villages sticking out of the solidified lava. Paricutin is a cinder cone volcano, which essentially means that it will likely never erupt again. The volcano is the youngest of all 1,400 currently known in the area and stands at 1,284 feet tall. But what makes this natural wonder even more amazing is that it is the only volcano witnessed during its creation in human history. This is particular amazing because while geologists have devoted lives to the study of their science they are unable to actual see a lot of what they are talking about since the movements of the earth and rock formations are obviously very slow compared to a human life time. Paricutin was therefore a rare chance to witness something that had only ever been talked about before.

17. Victoria Falls

One of the most amazing waterfalls in the entire world is located in Zambia, in the country of Zimbabwe. Visible from up to 40 miles away the waterfalls spry can jump up to a 1,000 feet into the air. Formed by the movement of the earth over 150 million years ago Victoria Falls is a glimpse of something primal. Spanning 5,550 feet it is a magnificent sight and the sound is so overpowering the locals have come to call it ‘smoke that thunders.’ The height of Victoria Falls varies from 259 to 350 feet high at the center. In many respects it is the largest waterfall in the world. Discovered by David Livingstone in 1855 it was named for Queen Victoria of England. Waterfalls are notoriously romantic places, water a symbol of life, and Victoria falls not only has more of both then almost anywhere else in the world it also offers a glimpse of the past in a very unique way.

16. Mammoth cave

Mammoth Cave, located in Western Kentucky, is not only Kentucky’s only National Park, but is also the most longest system of underground caves in the world. It boasts 365 miles of explored territory, and even more that hasn’t yet been walked upon yet. A variety of tours go through the cave system throughout the year. The most amazing aspect of this cave system has to be that if you joined the worlds other two longest caves together Mammoth Cave’s cave system would still be longer by 100 miles. It was named for the variety of mammoth and other large bones found in the area. In fact such archaeological finds are still being found, and early explorers of the cave in the 18th century found the bones so well preserved they actually believed they might encounter some of these great beast as they pushed further into the new country. In short this is a great look at cave system that played a part in the early history of America’s story.

15. Lake Baikal

The deepest fresh water lake in the world! Lake Baikal, located in southern Siberia in Russia, is a breathtaking sight. It is also one of the oldest lakes in the world, (estimated at being 25 million years old), and is so large it was referred to as the ‘North sea’ in several historical texts from china. Surrounded by mountains and home to 22 separate islands Lake Baikal has been called the ‘Blue Eye of Siberia’ and even a short look at the magnitude of its landscape and the reports from visitors show that its beauty and wonder are unmistakable. Stretching down into the earth 5,370 feet deep and with a crescent shaped surface of 12,160 square miles this truly is the deepest Fresh water lake in the world and a truly amazing natural wonder. It is a rare natural wonder in one of remotest places on the planet. It also puts truth to the myth that all of Siberia is cover in snow!

14. The Plitvice Lakes

Located in Croatia, the Plitvice Lakes are one of the country’s most beautiful sights and draw in visitors from around the world every year. There are a total of sixteen lakes in all and they’re connected by a series of waterfalls that makes it one of Croatia’s most and popular attractions. Oddly enough, this is also where Croatia’s War of Independence began in 1991. They provide a unique and enthralling view of the coincidences and amazing power of nature through the changing color of the lakes water in the sunlight and visitors can be sure they will never have the same experience twice or each and every time they go. Croatia is also fast becoming one of the most popular destinations for travelers of all sorts around the world and with wonders like the Plitvice lakes it is easy to see why.

13. The Barringer Meteor Crater

Located near Flagstaff in northern Arizona this meteor crater is named after Daniel Barringer who first speculated it had been caused by a meteorite. (The Barringer family also privately owns the crater.) Many natural wonders are amazing because of their beauty, like the northern lights or Lake Victoria falls, it is safe to say that the Barringer Crater is not. But we have encountered other reasons for amazing natural wonders such as unique qualities and destructive power both of which cause just as much wonder in us as onlookers. But the Barringer meteor crater has something else as well. The sight of the largest meteor crater in the world brings out an honest curiosity in us. Protected by the moon and the gravity of Jupiter we have largely been left to imagine what kind of damage such an object could do. But the Barringer Meteor crater, as you can see from the picture above, does a lot to bring some cold hard reality into that image. Simply put at 4,145 feet across and 570 feet deep the sight of this great hole in the earth’s surface can send cold chills down your spine. Traveling at over 43,000 miles an hour the meteor would have created an explosion 40 times larger than the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima at the end of world war two, breaking the 77,000 ton meteor into pieces upon landing!

12. The Hydrothermal Vents (Deep sea vents)

Imagine Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park (see item number 4 on this list), but under water. That is basically a hydrothermal vent. Spouting very, very hot, (up to 750°F), mineral rich water the vents are actually home to some of the most unique and bizarre life forms on the planet. First discovered in 1977 the vents were thought to be too hot for life to survive, but since then, life, living in darkness and under indescribably hot temperatures, has been found! The vents are present in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans at an average depth of 7,000 feet, where no light can penetrate, and are centered on a tectonic fissure in the earth’s crust known as the Mid-ocean Ridge system that runs all the way around the planet. How do these vents work? As the plates of the earths surface separate salt water falls into the cracks and gets heated by the molten rock underneath. The water is then eventually forced back up when it hits boiling point. There are two types of vents ‘black smokers’; which provide hotter jets mainly containing ion and sulfide and ‘white smokers’ that are cooler and give off compounds like calcium and silicon. One vent chimney, known as ‘Godzilla,’ located in the Pacific Ocean near Oregon got to be as tall as a 15-story building before it collapsed. They are still largely a mystery to scientist and to the rest of us they are simply a deeply unusual natural wonder.

11. Harbor of Rio de Janeiro

A natural harbor and one of the most beautiful things you could possible see in your life. This is the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, or River of January. The reason it was called a river was because the Portuguese sailors who found and named this amazing natural wonder mistook the grand opening of the harbor for a river, and while it hurts to take the shine off a name, the reason it was called ‘January’ is because that’s the month they found it in back in 1502. Still, even after you have dissected the name, it still sounds wonderful and the sight of it is more than enough to make you forget the boring reason behind its poetic name. It makes it this high on the list of natural wonders of the world because unlike the other wonders the harbor of Rio de Janeiro has become a Natural Wonder of the World purely because of its beauty. True, the natural formation of a harbor is a wonder in itself, but it is the grace of its lines on the shores of Guanabara Bay that have pulled in sight seers and travelers from all over the world…that, and the sunny climate.

10. Mainau

Germany might not sound like a suitable location for a tropical island, but the flora and fauna on Mainau, located in Lake Constance, seem to be doing just fine. Also called the “flower island”, Mainau gets its mild climate from a combination of the cross winds that blow in from the Alps. Palm trees and oranges flourish there during the correct season and the pretty Baroque castle is a focal tourist spot for everyone who hears about it. Unnaturally it is not as well know as most natural wonders of the world, but the unique and almost unbelievable combination f weather patterns and placement make Mainau an oddity truly worthy of a place on a list like this.

9. The Badlands

The Badlands National Park, located in southwestern South Dakota, is one of the most unusual sights in the United States. It encompasses 244,000 acres of buttes, spires, and prairie grasslands. In the past, most of the Midwest consisted of prairie lands. However, once the settlers started moving in, they began tearing out the prairie grass in order to make farms and till the land. What they didn’t know at the time was that the prairie grass was what was holding the dirt in the ground because the winds in those areas get to be pretty strong. Very soon, the entire Midwest was engulfed in the Great Dust Bowl of the 1930’s. Fortunately, the reserve at the Badlands has preserved the prairie lands in the region. As far as fossils go, everything from crocodiles to camels and rhinos have been discovered in the area and people the world over have enjoyed the opportunity to explain that for their family vacation they explored ‘The Badlands.’

8. The Painted Desert

Located in North Eastern Arizona and stretching from the Grand Canyon National Park to the Petrified Forest National Park, the Painted Desert is one of the American West’s most stunning sights. The bands of colors are what make the scenic rises and buttes interesting in a way no other topography can match and at any given time visitors can see reds, yellows, grays, and oranges on one single formation. These colors are created by stratified layers of mineral deposits and detritus, (decaying organic matter), but even knowing this the sight of the Painted Desert is nothing short of an awe inspiring wonder of nature. The desert is also a popular place to see dinosaur tracks and prehistoric fossils. Unfortunately most of the Painted Desert is only accessibly on foot or by traveling on one of the many unpaved roads that run through it. But it is certainly worth the effort!

7. The Matterhorn

The Matterhorn is not the highest in the famous Swiss mountain range, but it was the one to capture our imagination. The Matterhorn looks out over the nearby village of Zermatt and sits on the border between Switzerland and Italy. It has become the iconic image of the Alps and was first climbed in 1865 by and English artist and engraver named Edward Whymper. It has two distinct peaks the tallest of which over 14,690 feet and the other resting on the Italian side of the mountain is calculated at 14,680 making it an almost imperceptible difference and accounting for it’s four sided pyramid shape. The mountains distinct shape also stops ice and snow from building up on its sides creating another factor that has gone into designing its iconic image and stunning appearance. But the mountain is as dangerous as it is beautiful. The Matterhorn’s north face has become one of the greatest challengers to climbers. From 1865 to 1995 over 500 people have died on the Matterhorns north face making it not only one of the most recognizable but also the deadliest north face in the Alps.

6. Niagara Falls

Resting between the Canadian providence of Ontario and the U.S state of New York Niagara Falls is not only a natural wonder but also an industrial powerhouse of hydroelectric power. Combining the beauty of nature with our own effort to preserve our natural resources Niagara Falls offers a breathtaking view and has been a major tourist attraction since European explorers discovered it in the 1800’s. It is made up of several separate waterfalls named The Horeshoe Falls (on the Canadian side), the American Falls and the Bridal Veil falls. At times the combined volume of water flowing through Niagara Falls can get up to 202,000 cubic feet per second making it the most power full waterfall in north America. Extended more than 62 miles both east and west it is undoubtedly one of the most impressive landmarks in the world. As if this wasn’t enough to warrant it’s place on the list of natural wonders consider the fact that it is over 420 million years old, that the dinosaurs, (the famous kind), were around only 230 million years ago at the earliest, and that humans started out only 1 and a half million years ago. So Niagara Falls has been breathtaking for 280 times longer then the human race has walked the earth!

5. Mount Everest

Located in High Asia on Nepal Tibet and China Mount Everest is the tallest mountain, or anything else, in the world as measured from sea level. Ranging nearly 29,029 feet into the air it is as close to space as any one can go without the help of a plane, spacecraft, or really big slingshot and some serious guts. Of course it also takes an awful lot of bravery to even attempt climbing Mount Everest since over 150 people have died trying to. It was first ascended on may 29th 1953 by the New Zealand explorer Edmund Hillary and the Nepali-Tibetan mountaineer Tenzing Norgay but since then many have lost their lives trying to equal the feet including fifteen climbers who died trying to return from the summit in 1996. A mystical and alluring image it’s distant, and almost invisible peaks have been drawing climbers and visitors ever since it was first seen by Europeans in the 1950’s, but the Chinese and Nepalese have placed a number of restrictions to limit access, only increasing the publics interest. But since the 1996 disaster question about the ‘commercialization’ of climbing Everest have been raised. Still it is unlikely that anything will ever be enough to scare men and women who dare to dream of climbing Everest. Originally formed by a collision between the continent of Asia and India, (which was then a separate land mass), over 60 million years ago Mount Everest is undoubtedly one of the true natural wonders of the world.

4. Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone has been a world heritage site since 1978 and was established as National Park by the United States in 1872. So it has long been regarded as one of the most amazing natural wonders of the world, but it has recently, in the last decade or so, been drawing a lot of attention for another reason, it is a super volcano. The BBC science channel ‘horizon’ first coined the term ‘super volcano’ in 2000, (more commonly called a megacaldera by scientists), but since then there have been increasing scientific and public interest in them. There are several super volcanoes on the planet but Yellowstone, previously known more for it natural beauty, it’s abundant wild life and Good Old Faithful, (the geezer that erupts ever 91 minutes or so), is now know to be the largest super volcano on the American continent. Simply put a super volcano is where magma that forms close to the earths and can build up enough pressure to erupt. In other words when a super volcano erupts it literally blows a hole in the side of the planet. Such a powerful explosion sends vast amount of debris and molten lava into the air and the force is strong enough that the material can cause vast changes to weather patterns around the globe possibly threading extinction. It has been theorized that a super volcano is, among other things, capable of plunging the planet into a ‘small’ (relatively speaking) ice age. Yellowstone is over 3,460 square miles and offers a number of other wonders including lakes, mountains, wonderful wildlife and the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem which is the largest remaining one in the Northern hemisphere.

3. The Great Barrier Reef

Located off the coast of Queensland in the northeast of Australia the Great Barrier Reef is the largest object visible from space made by living organisms. The people who made the Great Wall of China would probably be very upset if they heard this, but tiny little microorganisms called coral polyps beat them to the title. The reef is a fragile and unique organism housing many species that don’t exist anywhere else. First named a World heritage site in 1981 conservation efforts have been extensive and continual and a large part of the Reef has been protected by the Great Barrier reef Marine Park established in 1975. Made up of over 2,900 separate reef systems it forms 900 island, (claimed by that industrious captain Cook for Britain in the 1700’s), it is over 1,242 miles long and covers 137,000 square miles. Interestingly it also grounded Captain cooks ship, (the endeavor), in 1770.

2. The Grand Canyon

‘It’s a big hole,’ this is what most people find themselves saying when they see the Grand Canyon near Flagstaff, Arizona. This is not because visitors are prone to stating the obvious but because when they are faced with the 290-mile tear in the earth’s crust they can usual think of little else to say. It is an overpowering and wondrous sight to behold. It is 18 miles across at its widest point and goes up to a mile down. Cut out through a 6 million year long process by the gradual weight and pressure of the Colorado river the Grand Canyon has been a National Park since 1919 when President Woodrow Wilson finally managed to have it re-classified over the objections of those with mining rights. But it was President Theodore Roosevelt, the great outdoorsmen, who first recognized the Grand Canyons natural beauty and wonder and had it designated a Game Persevere in 1906. After several predators became extinct in the area it was finally possible to have it re-classified as a National Monument in 1908, before Woodrow Wilson did the world a favor by saving it and establishing the Grand Canyon, once and for all, as a National Park. Although it took ‘only’ 6 million years for the river to cut the Grand Canyon into the ground of Arizona it uncovered an impressive 200 billion years worth of geological history and shows evidence of humans in the area over 4,000 years ago. A true wonder of nature the Grand Canyon is not something you can see, but only travel, because it is too big to take in at any one place. The Park even offers visitors a remarkable tour to the bottom of the Canyon that can either be hiked or, if you are a little more adventurous, traveled by pack mule.

1. Aurora Borealis

The Auruoa Borealis, or northern lights, is the largest natural wonder in the world. Caused by charged particles, or ions, that gather to form plasma, it drifts towards the earth in the form of solar winds. When these solar winds interact with earth’s magnetic field they are forced down into the ionosphere and react to natural gasses. This reaction is what causes the vast and shifting array of colors visible mainly in the northern Hemisphere. The lights can also be seen in the southern hemisphere, then called the Aurora Australis (Latin for south), or the southern lights, but the phenomenon is best seen in the north and people travel to Alaska, Norway, Greenland, and Iceland every year to improve there chances of seeing it. No two viewings of the Aurora Borealis are the same and they have been amazing people across the world for as long as there has been recorded myth and folk law. Despite this it was the 6th president of the United States Benjamin Franklin who first brought the question of the northern light to the attention of the greater public and scientific community, stating that it might have been caused by electric charges in the Polar Regions. In fact this natural wonder of the world, as we have seen, originates not from the polar regions of our world but from the sun that gives it light. A gift of natural wonder, you could say, from above. The number 1 amazing natural wonder on this list is has no setting or national identity but litters the sky itself with a mystifying array of vibrant colors for all to see: A true amazing natural wonder of the world.