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.

10. Supervolcano

One of America’s most popular vacation destinations, Yellowstone National Park, sits atop one of the largest and most dangerous volcanoes on Earth. In fact, much of Yellowstone actually sits inside a giant caldera, which has been rising precipitously over the last decade. Unlike your run-of-the-mill volcanoes, “supervolcanoes” generally go much longer without erupting; however, when they do, they explode with ten thousand times the force of a volcano such a Mt. St. Helens. Over the past several years, geologists monitoring Yellowstone have noticed several signs that the caldera is pushing upward, the result of a buildup of pressurized magma close to the surface of the caldera. The caldera has pushed upward as much as 5 inches since 2003, water has begun boiling along some trails, and bison have died due to the release of toxic gas from the earth’s crust. Should Yellowstone’s supervolcano let loose, any life within 200 miles would be immediately incinerated in the explosion, with a dust cloud of white hot embers becoming extremely dangerous to any life within 600 miles of the caldera. Far more dangerous, however, would be the enormous volume of ash thrown into the atmosphere, which would almost certainly circle the globe and block out the sun, dropping the Earth’s temperature by several degrees, changing life on Earth forever.

9. Global Warming

By now, we’ve all heard the possible effects of global warming: the melting of the polar ice caps will lead to a rise in sea levels, flooding continental coastlines and either pushing the temperatures higher or plunging the Earth into yet another ice age. While it’s doubtful that most life on earth could survive an ice age such as the kind that wiped out the mammoth and saber-toothed tiger, it is perhaps the specter of a much warmer earth that is the more frightening of the two scenarios. Higher global temperatures almost certainly portend drought conditions in many of the areas of the world that the global economy relies on for food. Rising temperatures in the seas could wipe out marine life and a prolonged global drought could end plant life as we know it.

8. Cosmic Dust

Some astronomers believe that our solar system has a date with a black cloud of cosmic dust, at least 1,000 times denser than the space we are used to traveling through. While this interstellar fog won’t blot out the sun completely, it could be thick enough to significantly reduce the sun’s influence on our solar system. The dust and gas could begin eroding away the oxygen in our atmosphere, and the sun will no longer be able to protect Earth and the other planets from the electrons and ions that are constantly flying around in space. Eventually, cosmic rays will begin penetrating our atmosphere, tearing apart the molecular structure of our planet.

7. Nuclear Holocaust

During the height of the Cold War, it was commonly said that the United States and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear weapons to blow up the Earth several hundred times over. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, many nuclear weapons have disappeared and are wholly unaccounted for. Most concerning in this situation is the possibility that some of these weapons, many of which are small enough to carry in a suitcase, will fall into the hands of Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups that thrive on fanatical religion, leading to a global “suicide mission.” The fact that many religious fundamentalists believe that they will be rewarded in the afterlife for destroying evil here on Earth is not very comforting.

6. Mega Tsunami

Having witnessed the devastation that a tsunami can inflict on a region following the Christmas Day tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004, the possibility of a so-called “Mega Tsunami” is very troubling indeed. Imagine a wall of water, thousands of feet high, traveling across the ocean at supersonic speed, headed directly for the eastern coast of the United States. Unfortunately, scientists believe that it’s not a question of “if” such a Mega Tsunami will occur, but “when.” Approximately 500 billion tons of rock currently are hanging onto the side of an island known as La Palama, in the Canary Islands, waiting to slide into the Atlantic Ocean. Such an event would cause a Mega Tsunami that would most likely destroy major coastal cities in England, France, and Spain, as well as New York, Boston, and Miami.

5. Death of the Universe

If the Big Bang theory is correct, our universe “banged” into being out of a single, infinitely dense “singularity.” While this theory of the creation of the universe is now widely accepted, we are still left with the question of what banged? Why did it bang? Did something cause it to bang? Unfortunately, to date, we still haven’t even begun to answer these questions. Conversely, if the universe spontaneously sprang into being in a single instant, is it then possible that the universe could cease to exist in the same way? It is possible that whatever caused the universe to bang into life could cause it to spontaneously bang out of life? Scientists don’t know, but the burning question posed by this dilemma is one of the main reasons we need to better understand the origins of our universe.

4. The Death of the Sun

All good things must come to an end, and that includes the beautiful ball of light in the sky that we know as our son. Astronomers believe that our sun was born approximately 4.5 billion years ago and that it is one-third of the way through its life cycle. In another 1.1 billion years, the sun will increase its brightness by about 10 %, having an extreme greenhouse effect on Earth and likely wiping out life as we know it. In another 5.5 billion years, the sun will double in brightness as it uses up all of the hydrogen fuel contained in its core. Eight billion years from now, the sun will be approximately 166 times its current size, turning into a red giant. Though life on Earth will be long gone, the sun will fill the entire sky, swallowing Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth before it begins its descent into a white dwarf.

3. Death By Black Hole

For most of history, astronomers didn’t think we had much to fear from black holes here on Earth. After all, they appeared to be rare phenomena that existed in deep space and had little to do with the future of our planet. Then came the discovery of a so-called “Super Massive” black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and, even more frightening, the discovery of “wandering” or “renegade” black holes, right in our own galactic backyard. Acting as a giant cosmic vacuum cleaner so powerful that not even light can escape its grasp, these wandering black holes drift around the universe, gobbling up everything in their wake. If a black hole was get anywhere near Earth, one of two scenarios would take place, and neither of them would be much fun for us. The gravitational pull of the black hole would cause Earth to careen out of its orbit, either spinning out of the solar system and off into deep space, or in the opposite direction, directly towards the sun.

2. Gamma Ray Burst

Gamma ray bursts are the most destructive forces in the universe. Thought to be caused by the collapse of a rapidly-rotating, high-mass star into a black hole, gamma ray bursts seem to emanate randomly from unknown locations in deep space. Though gamma ray bursts last only a few seconds to a few minutes, they are often followed by longer-lived “after glows” of energy that are equally as destructive. Were Earth to be hit by a gamma ray burst, we would never see it coming. A quick gamma ray burst would hit the Earth as a ray of energy 1,000,000 times more intense than our sun, roasting our atmosphere and essentially microwaving the entire planet.

1. Meteor

Death by meteor has, of late, become the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters and alarmist fantatics screaming about the end of days. At least, it was, until scientists recently discovered that two meteors, approximately the six of two 10-story buildings, passed far too close to Earth for comfort in the last several months. Additionally, an asteroid scientists have named “Apophis” is scheduled to for a near miss of Earth in the year 2019. Depending on how close Apophis comes in 2029 will determine whether or not it impacts Earth when it returns from the other direction in 2036. In 2029, Apophis will pass (hopefully) pass within a mere 10,000 miles of earth, closer to us than some of our satellites. If the Earth were to be impacted by an asteroid the size of Apophis, life an Earth would most likely have to deal with the double-whammy of both an impact that would send fires racing across the planet and millions of tons of ash into the atmosphere, as well as a mega-tsunami that could wipe out all life within hundreds of miles of continental coastlines.

10. Blue Rose

Though the blue rose is certainly lovely and undoubtedly exotic, it barely makes this list because a true ‘blue’ rose doesn’t currently exist in nature. In the past, florists have been able to produce artificial blue roses by allowing naturally white roses to absorb blue dye, causing the petals to turn a royal blue or indigo color. However, in 2004, a team of Japanese scientists unraveled the riddle of rose genetics, figuring out how to “turn off” the rose gene that prevented the production of the blue pigment “delphinidin.” As a result, by incorporating iris and pansy genes into rose DNA, the team has been able to produce naturally-grown blue roses, which currently present with a distinctive lilac color. To date, the genetically-altered blue roses are rather pricey, being marketed to the lucrative cut flower industry.

9. Sherry Baby Orchid

Jasmine. Roses. Lillacs. These flowers have become beloved around the globe over for their fragrant scents, which form the basis for perfumes the world over. While the Sherry Baby’s scent will probably never be mass-distributed as a perfume, its aroma is no less beloved. This orchid, which sports brick-red blooms and whose growth is restricted only by the amount of space it is afforded, smells strikingly like chocolate. With fragrances said to range from mint-chocolate to vanilla-chocolate, the Sherry Baby has become extremely popular as a houseplant in recent years, due largely to the fact that it’s one of the easiest orchids for casual collectors to cultivate. Unlike other orchids, who have a reputation for being extremely finicky in cultivations, the Sherry Baby requires only a weekly watering and a sunny window to thrive.

8. The African Starfish (Stepelia gigantea)

You might think a flower that looks and smells like flatulence or decomposing flesh doesn’t deserve to be called “a flower” at all, unless you’re a carrion beetle or flesh-eating fly. The African Starfish, which grows in Southern Africa and sometimes in California, is approximately 8-10 inches high, with a sickening stench that either evokes rotting flesh or feces. A bright pink color with tiny white hairs that are meant to simulate mold growing on deceased animal flesh, the African Starfish attracts feces and flesh-loving insects.

7. The Bladder Campion (Silene vulgaris or Silene cucubalus)

Far less nauseating than the African Starfish is the delicate Bladder Campion, which is found growing wild along roadsides and in fields in the American Midwest. The Bladder Campion or “bladder flower,” as it is sometimes called, reaches between 8 and 24 inches in height and is easily recognizable because of its balloon-like calyx and pale green or white flowers. The Bladder Campion is believed to have as many as 10 stamens and 3 styles, as well as dark green or red veins on the calyx itself. Though the flowers only bloom for a month or so, the distinctive bladder of the plant can last for nearly an entire growing season.

6. Viceroy Tulip

At first glance, the Viceroy looks like any other tulip growing in a city parkway or someone’s garden. But it’s the story behind the Viceroy that makes it one of the world’s most exotic flowers. Though usually identified with Holland, tulips are believed to have originated in modern-day Turkey. In 1593, a Dutch botanist named Carolus Clusius brought several bulbs to Holland from Constantinople in order to establish a medicinal garden. His neighbors, aggravated by Clusius’ aversion to selling the exitic-looking flowers, broke into his garden and stole his bulbs. By the 1630s, tulips had become a status symbol of the rich in Holland, fetching astronomical prices at auction. In 1636, the bulbs of the Viceroy tulip, a marbled crimson and white flower, was sold at auction for the equivalent of $1250 in today’s US currency. Quite a feat, considering that the average Dutch worker earned approximately one-fourth of that price in an entire year. By 1637, the tulip bubble had burst, and the once-coveted flowers were worth only one-one hundredth of their original prices.

5. Bleeding Heart (Dicentra)

Native to Asia and North America, dainty Bleeding Heart takes almost two years to completely mature, eventually measuring 2-3 feet long. It’s one-inch, heart-shaped petals bloom in the spring and come in a variety of different colors, including rose pink, red, and white. These perennials are hardier than they look, and some species can maintain their blooms for an entire summer. As Bleeding Hearts’ vivid colors and unusual blooms are especially striking against a wooded background, they have become the favorites of casual gardeners in woodland borders all across the world.

4. Ghost Orchid

Famous for its central roles in both Susan Orlean’s book “The Orchid Thief and Charlie Kaufman’s movie Adaptation, the rare ghost orchid bears the distinction of having millions of fans who have probably never actually seen their favorite flower in real life. Native to Cuba and the Florida Everglades, the Ghost Orchid blooms from an epiphyte, a tangled mass of stems that wrap around a tree trunk. Also known as the “palm polly” or the “white frog orchid,” the Ghost Orchid was discovered by Jean Jules Linden in Cuba in 1844. Since then, it has proven extremely difficult to cultivate, being happiest growing 6 feet up or higher on pond-apple trees. Due to its unusual shape, the Ghost Orchid is pollinated solely by the giant sphinx moth, the only insect with a long enough proboscis.

3. Living Stone Plants (Lithops Optica)

At first glance, it’s difficult to even see this flower without its bloom, so adept is the living stone plant at blending in with the pebbles in its surroundings. The plant consists of a two-lobed, conical body, made up of two fused and thickened leaves. The short stem in between the two leaves is generally not visible. When the Living Stone Plant, generally found in West, South, and Central Africa, flowers, the bright white or yellow daisy-like bloom erupts from the tight fissure joining the two leaves together. The seeds inside the flower are wholly contained within a 4-8 chambered fruiting capsule.

2. Parrot Flower (Impatiens psittacina)

So exotic and rare is this flower, there was substantial debate about whether it was its own species or some unknown species of orchid. Discovered in 1899 in Burma, the Parrot Flower was identified at the Royal Gardens at Kew in London in 1901. Believed to grow only in Burma and Northern Thailand, the fragile bloom has been extremely difficult to cultivate, probably due to the fact that its odd shape requires that it have a local natural pollinator to procreate.

1. Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanium)

Related to the popular calla lily, the Titan Arum is one flower no bride would want at her wedding, and not just because of its size. With its unbranched inflorescence (the central structure upon which the flower is arranged) reaching up to 10 feet tall, the Titan Arum is one of the largest “flowers” in the world. But the Titan Arum’s notoriety comes not from its gigantic size, but because of its nauseating stench. Known around the world as the “corpse flower,” the Titan Arum exists in many botanical gardens, but grows naturally only on the edges of rainforests, near grasslands, in its native Sumatra. The plant, discovered in 1878 by Odardo Beccari, flowers rarely in nature and even more rarely in cultivation. Its unique smell, which resembles that of a rotting human corpse, is believed to act in conjunction with the Arum’s bright red color to attract insects that would normally feed on decomposing mammal carcasses. Interestingly, the plant’s temperature hovers around that of a human body, which is thought to help the scent travel further. The plant was christened “Titan Arum” by BBC television narrator and naturalist Sir David Attenborough during his narration of “The Life of Plants,” as he thought repeatedly saying the word “amorphophallus” was inappropriate for his audience. The Ghost Orchid is currently protected under both Florida state and federal law; wild Ghost Orchids cannot be removed from their native soil.

10. AIDS

If you asked Americans in the 1980s when scientists would find a cure for AIDS, most would certainly thought medicine would have figured AIDS out by now. Though we know more about AIDS than ever, more and more red ribbons appear every year, and a cure for AIDS is nowhere in sight. Globally, 33.2 million people are living with HIV, the retrovirus that leads to AIDS, 2.5 million of whom are children. Currently, 68% of those living with HIV reside in Sub-Saharan Africa. Aside from the staggering toll in human lives, it is estimated that AIDS costs the global economy trillions of dollars annually. Although treatments in recent years, most notably the anti-retrovirus “cocktail” have slowed the progression of HIV and AIDS, and significantly improved the lives of those living with the disease, scientists have been unable to develop a vaccine or cure. Due to the cost of these drug cocktails, which are not available to many without health insurance or living below the poverty line, many health officials believe that an AIDS vaccine is the only hope of stopping the global pandemic. Recently, bone marrow transplants have given some hope to AIDS researchers, as at least one patient was reported to have undetectable levels of HIV in his blood after he received the bone marrow of a donor suspected to be resistant to HIV.

9. The Theory of Everything

In the final years of his life, Albert Einstein was said to have become profoundly interested in discovery the “Holy Grail” of physics, the Theory of Everything (TOE). Fifty years after Einstein’s death, physicists still racking their brains to learn if a universal TOE exists. Ideally, a true TOE would link together all known physical phenomena. The difficulty in tying together a TOE is that two cornerstones of physics, Einstein’s theory of general relativity and the theory of quantum mechanics are extremely difficult to combine. For decades, scientists have sought a theory that would reconcile four basic forces: gravity, electromagnetic force, strong nuclear energy, and weak nuclear energy. However, with recent advances in cosmology, any TOE would most likely have to account for dark matter, dark energy, and inflationary force. It seems the closer scientists get to understanding the universe, the father away a TOE slips. The current mainstream TOE is the “superstring theory,” which posits that all matter, at its most basic level, is comprised of vibrating strands. Recently, scientists have begun to consider that additional dimensions might assist in deriving a TOE, as multiple dimensions allow physicists to answer questions that have dogged them for decades, such as why gravity is so much weaker than other forces. Theorizing that gravity could be leaking in to our dimension from another solves some basic problems with Einstein’s general theory of relativity. More than simply balancing out equations on a chalkboard, a true TOE would give scientists and unshakeable foundation upon which to heap their understanding of our universe.

8. Dark Matter

As it turns out, the vast majority of the universe is invisible. This seemingly-unbelievable fact is attributable to “dark matter,” which accounts for approximately 75 percent of the mass in the universe. Dark matter is hypothetical matter that scientists can neither observe nor measure, but can infer its existence due to its gravitational interactions with known matter. This dark matter, which contains no atoms and exerts no electromagnetic energy on other matter, is known to exist because of the effects it has on the rotational speeds of galaxies, the orbital velocities of galaxies in clusters, and the temperature distribution of hot gas in and between galaxies. It is certainly alarming to suddenly discover that the universe contains large amounts of invisible matter, but this is exactly what happened when astronomers, measuring the amount of hot gas in and between galaxies, learned that clusters of galaxies contained five times more material than was expected from visible galaxies and hot gas. This led scientists to declare that some other, invisible, “dark” matter made up the remainder of the material. Now that scientists have discovered dark matter, the questions of what dark matter is, how much of it there is, and what effect it has on the universe remain to be answered.

7. A Better Theory of Gravity

Every school child in the world learns about gravity through the story of Sir Isaac Newton sitting under the apple tree, so one would think that the question of gravity has been long-answered by scientists. After all, Einstein came up with his general theory of relativity way back in 1915. However, what many children don’t learn in school is that the theory of gravity gives rise to almost as many questions as it solves. For example, the theory of relativity and the theory of quantum mechanics are virtually incompatible. Additionally, it is the theory of gravity that gives rise to the mystery of dark matter; matter which is unobservable in the universe but inferred because of its gravitational effects on other mass. Moreover, there is no explanation for why gravity, as a force, is so much weaker than other forces, such as electromagnetic energy. These discrepancies make it difficult, if not impossible, for scientists to create a theory unifying all the physical laws of the universe. When it comes to physics, there’s no question that gravity, as we understand it, is the monkey wrench thrown into the works.

6. The “WOW!” Signal

On August 15, 1977, while working on the “big ear” project for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), Dr. Jerry Ehman detected an unusually strong narrowband radio signal. The signal, which last for 72 seconds, appeared to be non-terrestrial and originating from outside our solar system. The signal was so striking and so similar to what scientists believed an extra-terrestrial signal would look like, that Dr. Ehman wrote the word “WOW!” next to the signal on a computer printout. Thirty years after the WOW signal, SETI has been unable to find a recurrence of the signal, though they were able to determine that the signal seemed to have originated from the Sagittarius constellation. The question “Are we alone in the universe?” is one of the most profound in our existence. The WOW signal might possibly have given us reason to believe we are not.

5. Cold Fusion

The supposed discovery of cold fusion, quite literally, the creation of energy from water, in 1989 led many to speculate that the energy problems of the world had been solved and that, in the future, energy would be inexpensive and easily obtained. However, when the claims of cold fusion, purportedly achieved Martin Fleischman and Stanley Pons, could not be replicated, many physicists declared cold fusion impossible. Following the debunking of Fleischman and Pons’ claims, those who continued to work on cold fusion became pariahs in the field of physics. For decades, there was virtually no communication between those working in cold fusion and the established scientific community. However, the global energy crisis has renewed the interest in cold fusion as an endless source of renewable energy. In 2002, the U.S. Navy published a report in support of cold fusion. A 2007 symposium at MIT did not focus on whether cold fusion was real, but whether or not it could be made commercially viable. In recent years, significant progress towards “table-top” energy has been made. Without question, with the earth’s natural resources in decline and global warming an increasing concern, the time has never been better for the resurgence of cold fusion.

4. Why Do We Dream?

For thousands of years, dreams have been the muse of artists, scientists, and philosophers alike. After so much time, it’s surprising that scientists have yet to discover exactly why we dream. However, as we learn more about the role sleep plays in the health and well-being of humans, the function of dreams may become increasingly clear. Though a single, unified theory of the purpose of dreams has yet to emerge, some theories of dreams are more popular than others. For example, the Psychoanalytic theory of dreams posits that dreams are the brains way of manifesting our unconscious feelings and desires. The Activation-Synthesis theory holds that dreams are merely the brains way of attempting to interpret internal stimuli, emanating from the limbic system, while we sleep. Other scientists believe that dreams are the brains attempt to interpret external stimuli or resolve problems encountered during our waking hours. Should science ever be able to unlock the secret of how we dream and why, we may one day be able to better interpret our dreams or use dreams to further our mental and physical well-being.

3. Why We Age

Human beings are born with an incredible arsenal of processes which allow the body to fight off disease, repair itself, and regenerate cells. So how is that, over a long period of time, the human body becomes so broken that it eventually ceases to live? Gerontologists, those who study the process of aging, have two disparate theories: the first is that the human body is pre-programmed to begin breaking down at a certain point in time. The second theory posits that aging is the result of environmental damage heaped upon the body over an extended period of time. Recent developments in the field of biochemistry lead scientists to believe that, one day, the human life span can be extended significantly and the quality of life during old age improved dramatically.

2. Consciousness

It is one of the biggest mysteries in life: how an influx of electrical impulses sent to a three-pound mass of grey tissue inside the skull gives rise to awareness, emotions, and sensations. In other words, what gives rise to consciousness? While water, air, and the function of our physical bodies give rise to life, it can be said that consciousness is life itself. To tackle this question, scientists have broken the mystery of consciousness into “the easy problem,” which seeks to distinguish our awareness from the mere unconscious functioning of our body. “The hard question,” on the other hand, is what gives rise to a subjective experience. More simply stated, what puts the “I” in “I?” Many scientists believe that consciousness is simply the result of chemicals and electric impulses in the brain. After all, once the brain stops functioning, consciousness, as we know it, ceases to exist. Others believe that consciousness reflects something more than just the mere workings of the brain, that consciousness is evidence of a soul. The question of consciousness is as basic to our understanding of ourselves as the question of where we came from and why we are here. Should scientists ever be able to crack the code of consciousness, we may one day be better able to understand our place in the universe.

1. The Creation and Fate of the Universe

Once highly controversial, the Big Bang theory of the creation of our universe has gained acceptance in recent decades. The theory, which holds that all matter exploded from a singularity, a microscopic, infinitesimally dense, single point, seeks to explain how, in an instant, nothingness exploded into everything. While the Big Bang isn’t accepted by all scientists, it has evolved over the years into the mainstream theory. But the Big Bang theory still leaves many questions unanswered. What banged? How did it bang? Why did it bang? And, leaving the realm of science and delving into philosophy and religion, did someone cause it to bang? Equally as important as the origins of our universe is the fate our universe will eventually suffer. If, as scientists believe, the universe is constantly expanding, galaxies, stars, and solar systems will continue to race away from each other, leaving dark, empty spaces in between. Or perhaps there will be a sort of second Big Bang, one in which our universe is destroyed, rather than created. One thing is certain: the question of where we came from and where we are headed has been pondered by human beings since the beginning of time. It has forever been, and will continue to be, the most important question our species can answer.

10. Auto-drivers

Imagine the days of pulling out maps, driving around looking for a parking space, and stopping to ask strangers for directions are over. In this world, you simply plug your desired destination into your car’s online computer, and your car is guided, via satellite, to your intended location. Long gone are the days of traffic, stress, and road rage, as “drivers” kick back and enjoy movies or internet access while their cars, along with all others on the roads, constantly adjust their speeds to avoid creating gridlock. What’s more, drivers and passengers are chauffeured to the front doors of malls, grocery stores, and doctor’s offices, while their car parks itself. When they are ready to return home, a simple click of the key fob recalls their car to pick them up. What’s more, the mortality rate for drivers is almost non-existent, as an army of sensors, lightning-quick reflexes, and the car’s ability to maneuver defensively to avoid collisions make traffic accidents a thing of the past. 

9. Personalized Advertising

To some extent, we see a fair amount of personalized advertising already. Online advertising services have adapted software to display ads tailored to the demographics of those who most read certain websites, and online vendors, such as Amazon.com, make individualized recommendations for their customers based on their browsing and purchase history. In the future, all advertising will be tailored to the individual. Imagine walking into a grocery store to see a holographic image of items that you frequently purchase that are on sale. Clothing stores could display images of customers in the latest fashions, making recommendations based on a customer’s size, shape, and past purchase history. During the holidays, deciding what to purchase for loved ones is as simple as logging onto a website that identifies items, new and old, which would most likely make welcome gifts. The days of forgetting to get milk at the grocery store would be long over, as your personal advertising agent could “remind you” not to leave the store without making sure you don’t need certain items. Rather than creating ad campaigns that appeal to the masses, the new frontier in advertising is tailoring ads to the individual.

8. Real-Time Language Translation

The communication barrier has been broken. You don’t need to say “excuse me,” “what did you say?” or “I beg your pardon,” because you will own headphones or earplugs that will have a direct connection to the internet, translating every word your partner is saying and vice versa. You can now marry a person without ever learning their native language. Try to wrap your mind around even understanding the language of animals or insects. Someday it may even be possible to understand what a baby is saying. Can it be done? Technically yes, all organisms have a way of communicating with each other. There is no reason why we can’t learn that language and catalog it in a database for real-time translation. 

7. Build-A-Pet

Do you suffer from allergies that make owning pets difficult? Do you wish to re-create a certain mixed breed of dog that reminds you of one you had as a child? Do you have special needs that require the assistance of a “helper” animal? Imagine a world where, rather than trolling breeder websites and your local animal shelter for the perfect pet, you can simply order one, custom-made, online. Gone will be the days when families return pets to shelters or simply leave them on the side of the road because they were not compatible with their family. In the future, filling out a simple questionnaire regarding your lifestyle, family, and desired pet traits will help you “construct” the perfect pet for your individual situation. As gains are made in cloning and gene manipulation, scientists may, one day, be able to “build” custom pets to order. Families with small children could select breeds with infinite patience and a gentle nature. The elderly could choose breeds and are most inclined to assist them with household activities, incorporating the traits from individual pets that were naturally intelligent and genetically-inclined to help those in need. Tailoring pets to the specific needs and temperaments of their owners would enable humans and animals to further strengthen the bonds that already tie us so closely to our four-legged friends. 

6. Wireless Online Eyewear

Forget computers, which are conspicuous, bulky, and a pain to lug around. Scientists have recently announced a breakthrough in contact lenses that allow their wearer to watch television broadcast on the inside of their contact lenses. The technology for such futuristic eyewear is relatively simple and inexpensive, fuelling hopes that such inventions will be available in the near future. But what if we were able to view more than television in such a private manner? What if we were able to surf the web, watch movies, read books, even monitor home webcams without the rest of the world knowing it, all if it shown to us and us alone on the inside of special contact lenses? Recent scientific developments suggest that such a future is not far off. 

5. Personalized Homes

Several minutes before you return home from a two-week vacation, the heat in your home, which has been turned off while you were gone, kicks in and regulates the temperature of your home just the way you like it: a cool 66 degrees. The porch light clicks on and soft lighting and music fill your home, as does the scent of vanilla, your favorite. In the kitchen, the coffee begins brewing, perfectly-timed to be ready for consumption the moment you walk in the door. Your children’s rooms, where your son and daughter will soon be fast asleep, return to their standard night-time temperature of 70 degrees, slightly warmer than the rest of your home. Because your son suffers from allergies, a de-humidifier runs constantly. Without being instructed, a warm bath begins to run in the master bedroom. Sound too good to be true? It shouldn’t. The technology for such a home already exists and has been employed in experimental homes and the residences of the super-rich. In the future, such personalization of homes will be available to the general public, allowing each of us to put a little more of “us” into our homes. 

4. On-Demand Medical Diagnosis

The health care crisis is over. No more $30,000 medical bills, Put your medical card back in your wallet, because in this day and age the internet will cure whatever ails you. Tired of waiting for lab results or sitting in the doctor’s office? Just put your hand on the screen, allow the computer to scan it against an online medical database, and voila! The computer spits out your correct disease. And guess what’s waiting for you at the local pharmacy. Yes, your medicine is given to you by a smiling pharmaceutical machine. Human errors are negated, health care insurance and mal-practice lawsuits drop, and the need for an expensive doctor or pharmacists are eliminated. We are closer to this invention then you might think. Take a look at such websites as WebMD.com. While such online health information is basic in nature, this idea has already captured the imagination of healthcare practitioners. In order to implement such medical diagnosis, we must create a system to accurately identify pathogens and defects in the human body and overcome and a host of legal and business issues to make this invention a reality. 

3. Downloadable Knowledge

Welcome to the world of accelerated super-fast information upload. All your problems are solved. Throw away your books and plug your brain into the internet. Become a master cook, learn kung fu, or learn 20 other foreign languages. Learn to be a master craftsmen 10,000 times faster than learning it on your own. Imagine 5-year old children walking around with college degrees and having an interesting conversation with a 1-year old infant. Learning at such a rate could be an absolute miracle, advances in science would occur at such an exponential rate that the government would have to place some control over what is downloaded. Imagine a future in which the average high school graduate knows more information than a full-fledged scientist in the 20th century. Suppose this were possible. Would the brain retain the information or would practice still be required to polish the skills learned? The brain would need to decide what is needed, what to discard, and, in the event that the data expires, would the brain be able to forget the information? 

2. Super Vitual Reality

Visit any place you ever wanted to visit without setting foot out of your house. Feel, see, smell the beach in Brazil, the Desert in Africa, the pyramids in Egypt, the scorching cold in the north pole. Even visit places you may not want to visit in real life, such as the inside of a supermax prison or an expedition to the South Pole. Imagine immersing yourself into a fast action movie, running away from killer dinosaurs in Jurassic park, being chased by robots in terminator, or even stepping into your favorite video game. This technology has long been out of the sc-fi books and in technological laboratories. Cognitive powerhouses around the world are developing this technology as you read this article. Virtual Reality is being developed in the military to train US soldiers for combat complete with visual, audio, and olfactory sensations. With graphics technology improving at the current rate, we may see this technology achieved and marketed in this century. As with every piece of new technology, the potential for abuse exists. Such programs could be used to commit adultery with an unwilling participant without even touching the other person, rigged to inflict pain on another, or even used to collect private and confidential information. Considering this, perhaps the biggest question is not whether we are capable of producing such technology, but whether our society is ready for it. 

1. Teleportation

Picture the ultimate instant gratification machine where you can buy something from a website and have instantly delivered to your house through a transfer of atoms across the wire. Imagine a world where you can instantly email a package to anyone in the world at the speed of light. A portable teleport device, one that you can carry with you everywhere you go, could allow you to receive anything you wanted instantly from anyone in the world, no matter where you go. Although a device like this would solve many problems in today’s world, it would open up a whole new can of worms if it fell into the wrong hands. Terrorists could email guns, bombs, and nuclear weapons around the world in an instant. And while such an invention would probably spell the end of certain industries such as shipping and delivery services, it would most likely create an infinite need for people to man the new technology.