Mighty Predators- Largest Owl Species Of The World

Owls are a group of birds that belong to the order Strigiformes, constituting 200 extant bird of prey species. They are found in all regions of the Earth except Antarctica, most of Greenland and some remote islands. Most owls are nocturnal, actively hunting their prey only in water and darkness. Several types of owl, however, are crepuscular—active during the twilight hours of dawn and dusk. An owl’s sharp beak and powerful talons allow it to kill its prey before swallowing it whole (if it is not too big). The largest owl by length is the Great Grey Owl, which measures around 70 cm (28 in) on average and can attain a length of 84 cm (33 in). However, the heaviest (and largest winged) owls are two similarly-sized eagle owls; the Eurasian Eagle-Owl and Blakiston’s Fish Owl . These two species, which are on average about 2.53 cm (1.00 in) shorter in length than the Great Grey, can both attain a wingspan of 2 m (6.6 ft) and a weight of 4.5 kg (10 lb) in the largest females.

Eurasian Eagle Owl

The Eurasian Eagle-Owl is one of the largest owls in the world. They favor rocky outcrops and cliffs in a variety of wooded habitats throughout much of Europe and Asia.

10 Most Crowded Islands of the World

Human beings are an amazing species. Given enough time, they will multiply, relocate and establish even on the most remote corners of the world. The following islands, I’m sure, were once uninhabited full of lush green forest, beautiful beaches and perhaps an animal or two. Today, entire cities stands on them. But unlike communities on mainland, land and resources on an island are scarce. With no space to grow geographically these islands are crushingly dense with people and housing.

Here is a collection of some of the most populous island in the world.

Fast Facts on Coffee Consumption

Pouring in Your Cup: Fast Facts About Coffee Consumption is a good infographic from Hamilton Beach.

This is a good example of a company publishing an informative, marketing infographic about a topic related to their products (coffee makers), without feeling like a sales pitch or ad for their products.  However, I don’t think there is a clear story told by the infographic.  It’s generally a bunch of coffee and caffeine statistics put together in an infographic without a clear message.

I like the design and the simple color palette.  Most of the visualizations are clear and easy to understand except the bunch of coffee cups lined up in the middle.  I think each cup is supposed to represent the 20 cups/week the average office worker drinks, and all of the cups together is supposed to represent a year of coffee consumption.  When you line up images like this, the rows really should have only 10 images each for the reader to easily understand the quantity.  So, there should be 52 cups to represent the whole year, but there are only 48 cups shown.

There are a handful of stand-alone statistics that are just shown in text, that could have been visualized.  The clock image shown next to the stats “24 minutes a day” should have had a highlighted portion showing 24 minutes.  I like the male/female symbols used on the coffee cups, and the Venn-diagram style of coffee blends is great.

The Evolution of the Handgun

There have been literally thousands of different gun models, but The Evolution of the Handgun infographic from GunVault.com covers most of the major advancements in handgun design.

I really like the first two sections of this design, and I think the last section was unnecessary.  The timeline and the gun specifications sections do a good job of laying out the data and keeping it simple.  The barrel length and the calibers of each model work very nicely.  Since the # of Rounds data is quantitative, I would suggest visualizing that as a series of circles instead of a solid bar to better communicate quantity.  

The last section adds a lot of text, repeats the data from the second section and makes the overall infographic gratuitously long.  The flags showing the country of origin could easily have been added to the earlier sections.

The Facebook IPO

With Facebook going public and a driven founder focused on long-term success why isn’t everyone frantically buying it up? Since the offering the value has dropped slightly. Maybe this was just a correct valuation by Facebook and that’s why the price hasn’t risen. Maybe people see Facebook as a fad, and no threat to Microsoft, Google and other big tech stocks.

Maybe FB will stick around forever? (the timeline feature makes it seem that way). When we are dead and gone, a great-grandchild will find out they inherit a few shares of Facebook – instantly rich?

I think Facebook will be a great company for many years, but they will have their challenges. I wonder if Zuckerberg will start replacing Gates as the tech market’s main mogul. [Via]

Amazing Desert World

The 10 Largest Satellite Dishes On Earth

Some of these Satellites are used for various different things. From television broadcasts to studying the stars. 

10. The Dish, USA

Diameter: 150 feet (46 meters)

Ensconced in the foothills of Stanford, CA, the radio telescope known simply as The Dish is a landmark visited by around 1,500 people every day. Yet, while undoubtedly a popular site for hikers and joggers, The Dish is also actually still operational today, used by both academics and other researchers. Built by the Stanford Research Institute in 1966, this 150-foot-diameter (46m) behemoth was initially intended for study into the chemical make-up of our atmosphere but, with its powerful radar antenna, was later used for communication with satellites and spacecraft — notably the Voyager probes sent forth to explore the outer solar system.

Pictures of Animal by Mark Bridger

Here is incredibly inspiring wildlife Photography by Mark Bridger.Mark lives and works in the UK.  

THOUGHTS

"The secret of life is that all we have 

and are is a gift of grace to be shared."

"Live your life while you have it. 

Life is a splendid gift- there is 

nothing small about it."
-Florence Nightingale

LOST CONTINENT

A lost continent is a hypothetical landmass that for whatever reason no longer exists. A prime example is Atlantis, which, according to Greek myth, sank to the bottom of the sea. What follows is a list of four similar lost continents.

1.

Mu

When traveler and writer Augustus Le Plongeon explored Mayan ruins in the Yucatan, he claimed to have translated one of the four known Maya codices. According to his translation, the Mayan civilization was much older than those of Egypt and Greece, and that the codex also told of an even older continent: Mu. According to Le Plongeon, Mu was located somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean and, comparable to Atlantis, had been sunk by terrible earthquakes. Refugees from Mu would later establish Egypt while others would become Mayans.

Another, slightly more “out there” theory was presented by James Churchward in 1926. He claims that after translating over two-thousand tablets, he has learned that Mu actually existed in the Pacific Ocean and was home to over sixty-million people while maintaining colonies in other parts of the world. The civilization was advanced, perhaps the most advanced of its time. However, around thirteen thousand years ago it was destroyed in a single night by underground volcanic activity. He contends that the civilizations that we consider ancient all stem from Mu refugees because they all used common symbols for communication. What’s more, he points to monolithic art and its presence throughout the ancient world as evidence to his claims.

Science, of course, has to reject this because science has to be a downer much of the time. We know that landmasses of considerable size (at least the ones that can reasonably house sixty-million people) simply do not “sink.” That hasn’t stopped believers, though. Modern believers claim that evidence of Mu can be found of the coast of Yonaguni Island, Japan, where several structures can be found underwater.

हर दिन होता है यहां 'चमत्कार'

बांदा| बुंदेलखण्ड की धरती पर कई देवी-देवताओं के स्थान हैं और उनसे जुड़ी लोगों की आस्थाएं भी अलग-अलग हैं। इन्हीं में से एक है हमीरपुर जनपद के झलोखर गांव में भुवनेश्वरी देवी का अनूठा स्थान जहां न मंदिर है और न कोई मूर्ति। नीम के पेड़ के नीचे एक भारी-भरकम टीले पर विराजमान इस देवी स्थान के बारे में लोगों का मानना है कि यहां की मिट्टी लगाने मात्र से गठिया रोग ठीक हो जाता है।
वैसे तो बुंदेलखण्ड की सूखी की धरती पर लोकी दाई, हरसोखरी दाई, चिथरी दाई, कथरी दाई, भुइयांरानी, काली दाई, पचनेरे बाबा, बरियार चौरा, कंडहा बाबा, मदना बाबा जैसे सैकड़ों देवी-देवताओं के देवस्थान हैं जिनसे ग्रामीणों की ही नहीं, शहरी लोगों की भी आस्था जुड़ी है।

कई ऐसे देवस्थान हैं जिनके बारे में लोगों का मानना है कि यहां आने से विभिन्न गम्भीर बीमारियां ठीक होती हैं। झलोखर गांव के भुवनेश्वरी देवी के टीले पर चढ़ौना के रूप में कोई प्रसाद नहीं चढ़ाया जाता, लेकिन यहां रविवार को भक्तों की भीड़ जमा होती है। ज्यादातर भक्त गठिया रोग से पीड़ित होते हैं।

लोगों का मानना है कि एक नीम के पुराने पेड़ के नीचे विराजमान भुवनेश्वरी देवी स्थान के टीले की मिट्टी लगाने मात्र से गठिया बीमारी जड़ से दूर हो जाती है। देवी का पुजारी मिट्टी के बर्तन बनाने वाले कुम्हार बिरादरी से ही नियुक्त करने की परम्परा है।

Wisdom in Phrases

Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself, 'Lillian, you should have remained a virgin..' - Lillian Carter (mother of Jimmy Carter)   <><>  I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: - 'No good in a bed, but fine against a wall.' - Eleanor Roosevelt <><>