Christmas Time in New York City

        New York City is one of the best place to celebrate Christmas Eve. If you are searching a wonderful place for celebrating Christmas,  New York is my first suggestion. 
       The 17,000 square-foot ice-skating rink and more than 125 shopping kiosks and food vendors are waiting for you. The awesome Bryant Park is center of joy on Christmas days in New York City.  Not only  free ice-skating also 17,000 square-foot outdoor rink is waiting for your fun. you may bring your own skates or rent for $20.The Union Square’s and Columbus Circle’s holiday markets as well as Mad. Sq. Eats and more than 150 holiday shops, including a bunch of new kiosks and eateries for your shopping and eating pleasure. There is also the rink-side pop-up restaurant ready for serving you coffee, snack, sandwiches and soup. 
       The 76 foot tall Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is one of the another attraction of  New York City. It is decorated with 45000 LED bulbs.
       Every year On Christmas Day the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade ends with Santa coming in front of the department store on 6th Ave in a big apple.
      The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the attraction of New York City during the  Christmas Eve. You must see the Medieval Sculpture Hall, a 20-foot blue spruce, and spend long minutes marveling at the gorgeous 18th-century Neopolitan nativity scene.
        You must take the taste of hot chocolate at Sant Ambroeus the legendary Italian restaurant has two branch on the Upper East Side, one in Soho, and another in the West Village.
          The Wollman Rink at Central Park is the another attraction of tourists. The rink was started in 1949. You may play ice hockey in the rink. A skating school is situated here. You may enjoy party in the rink.

  

Interesting story about Santa Claus

Santa Claus is the most famous name in Christmas Eve who brings the gift for the children on 24 December and the early morning of 25 December. Santa Claus is also known as Saint Nicholas, Kris Kringle, Father Christmas and Santa.

      St. Nicholas is the man behind the story of Santa Claus who was a Bishop lived in the fourth century in a place called Myra in Asia Minor, now called Turkey. It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. It is said that he donated all of his wealth to help the poor and sick. One of the popular story about the St. Nicholas is that he saved three poor sisters from being sold into slavery or prostitution by their father.

     Till 16th Century in northern Europe, the stories about St. Nicholas was unpopular. But someone presents this story to children at Christmas particularly in England. And St.      Nicholas became 'Father Christmas' or 'Old Man Christmas'. In France, he was then known as 'Père Nöel'.In some countries like Austria and Germany, he is known as the 'Christkind' a golden-haired baby, with wings, who symbolizes the new born baby Jesus.

        In the early USA his name was 'Kris Kringle' . Later, Dutch settlers in the USA took the old stories of St. Nicholas with them and Kris Kringle and St Nicholas became 'Sinterklaas' or as we now say 'Santa Claus'.

Many countries, especially ones in Europe, celebrate St. Nicholas' Day on 6th December. In Holland and some other European Countries, children leave clogs or shoes out on the 5th December as this day is St. Nicholas Eve to them. And they also leave some hay and carrots in their shoes for Sinterklaas's horse.

     

Cristiano Ronaldo's childhood - the football legend

Cristiano Ronaldo was born on 5 February 1985 in Madeira, Portugal. His father is Jose Dinis Aveiro and his mother is Maria Dolores dos Santos Aveiro. His father worked in the municipality as a gardener and his mother was a cook. Ronaldo was the youngest child of his parents. He was named after the famous actor Ronaldo Reagan. 

Indian river

       We can classify Indian river  into two categories;  rivers of the north India and another is south India.

      The source of the river of  north India is Himalayas. The major  north Indian and also main river of India is  the Ganga and its tributaries. The source of the river of  north India is Himalayas. The major  north Indian and also main river of India is  the Ganga and its tributaries. The source of the river of  north India is Himalayas. The major  north Indian and also main river of India is  the Ganga and its tributaries.    
      The Yamuna originates from the glacier Yamunotri and  joins with the Ganga at Allahabad famously known as "the Prayag". It is a very holy place in hindu religious.                                                   The another  important  river in India is Indus and its tributaries the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas, are the five rivers from which the Punjab become green.

     The source of South Indian river is the different mountain ranges of the south India. The major rivers of south India are the Narmada, the Tapti, the Mahanadi, the Godavari, the Krishna, the Cauvery etc.

     The most famous river of India is the Ganga. It is consider as a holy river. People worship the river as goddess. The Ganga is about 2,400 kms long. It originates from the glacier  Gadgetry at Gomukh in the Himalayas. The  main tributaries of  the Ganga are the Rama Ganga, the Gomati, the Ghaghara.

     The another important river of India is The Brahmaputra.  It is about 2,880 kms long. It originates from a glacier cuff Mount Kailas near the lake Manasarovar, and with the name Tango it flows through Tibet about 1100 kms from west to east.  

     The Godavari is the' largest river of the south India. The length of the river is about 1440 kms. It origi­nates from the Western Ghats mountain range.  
     The Krishna is the another important river of South India  originates  from the Mahabaleswar of the Western  Ghats.It flows  about 1280 kms. and drains into the Bay of Bengal. The  main tributaries of this river is the Tungabhadra and the Bhima.   

     The Cauvery is called "The Ganga of the south India." It originates from the mountainous region of Coorg. 

          

Know our body

This post is about some interesting facts of human body.

       Humans have 46 chromosomes, peas have 14 and crayfish have 200.

        Your heart beats 100 000 times a day and 30 million times in a year.

        Human has about 100 000 scalp hair.

        Nerve Impulses travel at over 400 km/hr.     

        Only four percent of the brains cells work and the remaining cells are kept in rest.

     

        We speak average 5000 words in a day.

        The ears never stop growing through lifetime.

        The teeth of a baby start growing 6 months before born.

        Your bones are 4 times stronger than concrete.

Dogs behaviour

 Happy dogs wag their tails to the right, and sad dogs wag their tails to the left.

 Dogs bite human to react  in aggression, fear or nervousness actually to show their current   state of mind.

 Dogs sleep average 10.1 hours in a day.

 Dogs bark to communicate another dogs.

 Suddenly get aggressive in pain, fear and illness.

 Dogs chew on toys and other objects to relieve the pain of  new  teeth coming in.

 Dogs dig to hide food from another.

 Dogs jump to show dominance over human.

 They feel anxious when they are separated from another dogs.

 Dogs circling to prevent human path of walking.

 It is seen that dogs pressing its head on the wall or another object.

 In the hot days dog pants to expel body heat from its mouth.

 Dogs set on human feet or between two legs to feel safer themselves.

Panda sleep

     Pandas don't have any particular sleeping spot. They have the number of place for sleeping. They can sleep wherever they happen to be. The word ‘panda’ comes from the Nepalese word ‘poonya’ which means is bamboo-eater. Chinese call the panda Xiong Mao, which  means is Bear Cat.

         Mostly they like to sleep on the forest ground. Pandas are very strong to climb that's why tree is one of the favourite place of sleeping. The wild like to climb on bamboo. They spend their maximum time by sleeping. Their favorite sleeping position is putting their hind paws on the trees with their front paws shading their eyes. Climbing on the trees and bamboos is their favourite game. They climb to protect themselves from danger. Panda sleep 3 to 4 hours continuously and take a break for meal. Most of the time they looks to eat bamboo, it is their favourite meal. pandas also eat grasses, wild fruits, insects, mice, even lambs in the surrounding villages.  Besides climbing they can also swim. The WWF logo was inspired by Chi-Chi, a giant panda brought to the London Zoo in 1961.

                         

Funny facts about frogs

     There are over 4,700 species of frogs in the world.Every different species of frog has his or her own look. Each species have a unique sound, and some frogs call can be heard a mile away. They are found on every continent except Antarctica. A group of frogs is called an army. 

      One of the funny facts about frogs is that in 2014, 14 new species of dancing frogs has been discovered. Frogs sleep with their eyes open. It’s hard to sneak up on a frog. They can see in all directions at once. Frog’s don’t drink water. They absorb it through their skin. Male frogs use croaking to attract female frogs. Frogs can lay more than 4,000 eggs in frogspawn.  Frogs have long back legs and webbed feet for jumping and swimming.  Frogs can jump over 20 times than their own body length. 

       Frogs are found in almost every colour. The colourful skin of many tropical frogs are poisonous. The golden colour dart frog  is considered to be one of the most poisonous animals of the earth. One gram toxin of a golden dart frog could kill 100,000 people.The male frog and the female frog is recognized by seeing their ears.  The ears of a male frog is larger than its eyes and the ears of a female frog is smaller than eyes.

    The glass frog has translucent skin, so you can see its internal organs, bones and muscles through its skin. You can even observe its heart beating and its stomach digesting food.

     The Indonesian frog Barbourula kalimantanensis has no lungs– it breathes through its skin.

      The biggest frog in the world is the Goliath frog. It lives in West Africa which is more than 7 pounds.

      Frog bones form a ring when the frog is hibernating. Scientists use these rings to calculate the age of a frog.

         Only male frog "Call" to invite the female frog when they are ready to mate.

Unknown facts of Snake

     Snakes are a cold-blooded reptiles like other reptiles. That means their body temperature changes in according to the temperature of their environment. Snakes can live in almost any environment, jungles, deserts, sea and even mountains. Snakes have been actually found as high as 16,000 ft in the Himalayas. Snakes range in size from the tiny, 10 cm-long thread snake like the size of a toothpick, to the reticulated python of up to 6.95 meters in length. There are some interesting facts about snake -
     Snakes live on everywhere on Earth except Ireland, Iceland, New Zealand, and the North and South Poles.

     There are approximately 3,400 snake species in the world. Almost 725 species are venomous snakes.  Out of those 250 can kill a human with one bite.

      Snakes smell with their tongue. They have ears inside their heads. Some snakes can survive without the meal for up to two years. Snakes don’t have eyelids .Snakes kill 100,000 people every year. Snakes are carnivores means they like to eat meat.

 
       Snakes cannot bite their food as they eat large prey, they will unhinge their jaw to swallow the food whole.

         Snakes are unable to close eyes. They can't blink and they must sleep with their open eyes.

          Snake  takes 3–5 days  digest its meal. The King Cobra can go months without having to eat.

          Snakes can open their mouths up to 150 degrees, which help them to eat things that are 75-100% bigger than their own size.

          Snake hearts move around in their bodies due to lack diaphragm that means their heart can adjust in any position of their body. This is for their heart doesn't get damaged when they eat large prey .

        Most snakes have only one lung.

        The Titanoboa is the largest, longest, and heaviest snake ever discovered, they lived about 60 million years ago.

               

Titanoboa

          Some snakes like  komodo dragons, sharks and turkeys have capability of "virgin births", meaning, asexual reproduction.

          70% of snake species lay eggs while the other 30% give birth to live young. 

         The vonem of the boomslang snake causes you to bleed from all holes of your body.
          A few snake species in the jungles of South and Southeast Asia can fly.

          Snakes are known as solitary hunters. But that’s not always true. A few species make their hunt  in groups.

         The most venomous snake in the world is the Inland Taipan.  The amount of venom of an inland taipan deliver in a single bit is  enough to kill 100 adult man.

                   

Inland Taipan

         There is an island in Brazil, known as the Snake Island. where people can't not go in fear of snake. There is almost 5 snakes on every 1 sq m.

         You may find the top ten deadliest snakes in Australia. The Deadliest Snakes in the world are the "Big Four".The Big Four are a group of venomous snakes.

         There are no terrestrial (land) snakes in New Zealand.

         The heaviest and thickest snake in the world is the anaconda. It weighs over 595 pounds (270 kg) and  they are  over 30 feet  in length. They are famous for eating caimans, capybaras, and jaguars. 

          The death adder is the fastest striker among any other snake in the world. It can attack, inject venom, and go back to striking position in under 0.15 seconds.

          Black mamba is consider as the most advanced snake species in the world . It has the most highly evolved venom delivery system of any snake on Earth. Its bite can cause collapse in humans within just 45 minutes. The mortality rate of a Black Mamba snake bite is almost 100%.

                                                                        Black Mamba

  

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Baby Elephant

   A baby elephant is called Calf. The gestation period of a elephant is 18-22 months which is most than any other animal in the world. A new born human baby is average 7 pounds while a new born elephant baby may be up to 260 pounds but only 4% of an adult female's weight and only 2% of an adult male's. The brain of new-born elephants are 30-40% of the size of that of an adult.

      A new born calf is about 3 feet tall. The baby elephant can stand up almost immediately after birth. Baby elephants are initially blind but they can recognize their mothers by touch, scent, and sound and some take to sucking their trunk for comfort in the same way that humans suck their thumbs. The trunk of a newborn calf is short at the first stage. About 99% of calves are born at night. Calves are born with curly black or red hair on their foreheads. Mothers select some another female elephants like babysitters to care for the calf so that she has time to eat enough to produce sufficient milk for her child. A calf drinks about 3 gallons milk every day. Calves depend almost entirely on milk for the first six months. Between 4 to 6 months they start to eat grass. After that they start to leave milk gradually but it become complete after more than two years old and weighs about 1900 to 2000 pounds. After 6 to 8 months, calves learn to use their trunks to eat and drink.

      Only lions or hyenas can kill the little baby. Mother elephant protect her baby from them. When a little one is in trouble all the females come to help him. The mother is very lovable and caring, she never leaves her child along. The entire group travels with the speed of the young elephants.

TRAINED PIGEONS

          Pigeon is the most common bird in the World. There are almost 310 different species of pigeon are found everywhere on earth, except the Sahara Desert, Antarctica and its surrounding islands and the high Arctic.

         You can bring pigeon in your house and give them training by different way for various job. You can start training at any time between 21 to 28 days of age. The first lesson will be how to drink water and how to find water. After that learn them to carry message from one place to another and to return home from outside. Pigeons can carry up to 75 g (2.5 oz) on their backs.

         Homing pigeons have a great history of carrying messages between two locations before the digital revolution.  Pigeons played a great role during World War I. Cher Ami, a home pigeon was awarded the French award Croix de guerre for her heroic service in delivering 12 important messages, despite having been very badly injured. Cher Ami  saved the lives of many French soldiers by carrying messages across enemy lines in the heat of battle. Cher Ami was shot in the chest and the leg, losing most of the leg to which the message was attached, but continued the 25-minute flight avoiding shrapnel and poison gas to get the message home.

                                                    

  

       During World War II, 32 trained pigeons includes the Irish Paddy, the American G.I. Joe and the English Mary of Exeter  received the Dickin Medel for their gallantry and bravery in saving human lives. G.I. Joe saved the lives of a thousand soldiers in World War II after British soldiers had established a position within an Italian town. Communication equipment was down and the only medium of communication was written message. G.I. Joe  flew 20 miles in 20 minutes at the air base with the message. 

                                                

       In Roman times the pigeons were used to carry the result of sports event, such as the Olympic Games. The last pigeon post service was abandoned in India in 2004 as the pigeon get retire from life.

        pigeons are able to recognize individual people, most likely by their facial characteristics. A very interesting thing is that a trained pigeon can tell the difference between the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet.

                                                          PABLO PICASSO

                                                              CLAUDE MONET

Stripes of tiger

1.       Tigers are the only cat species that are completely striped and the species of tiger can identify by their pattern of stripes. Tigers not only have stripes on their fur, they also have on their skin.  Two tigers ever not have the same stripes. Like human fingerprints, their stripe patterns are unique to each individual. Stripes range in color from light brown to black and are not symmetrical on both sides. Stripe density varies by subspecies.
2.         Stripes are basically for hiding purpose. Stripes help tiger to hide themselves during the hunting. The stripes look like shadows as they walk through long grass in the moonlight.
3.        stripes help them to go close to their prey  without being spotted. Most animals in the wild do not see colors which is a huge benefit to tiger. The black, white and grey colour stripes is look like shadow for some of those animals. The Orange colour stripe helps them to blend with the wild grasses and ground covers which make them look like a big Orange ball and between these Orange colour black stripe exists which break up the orange colour. As most of the wildlife animals can’t distinguish between different colour they thought the Orange colour is of grass and Black colour as grass’s shadow. So the animals could’nt see the Tiger. In this manner the stripes make them harder to spot.

                                    

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Somalia Blast

At least 277 people have now been confirmed killed in Saturday's double car bombing in Mogadishu, making it the deadliest incident in Somalia's modern history. Somalia's Ministry of Information said 300 people remained in hospitals after the October 14 attack.

                                    

Trump hair

Trump has many attention-grabbing traits, and his hairstyle is one among them. Apparently, many people have asked him about his hair and what he does to it. He told that all he does is take a shower, wash his hair, read the newspaper while it dries after that he comb it. He uses Head & Shoulders, but does not use a hairdryer. Trump uses hair spray though he is not happy about the current state of that industry. He gets his haircuts from his wife Melania.

Interesting fact of FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017

Three teams are making their debut in the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 – Niger, New Caledonia and host India.
The first goal in the history of the tournament was scored by Brazilian footballer Bismarck.

Nobel Prize 2017

Physics             :            Rainer Weiss,    Barry C. Barish,     Kip S. Thorne


Chemistry         :            Jacques Dubochet,    Joachim Frank,    Richard Henderson


Peace               :            International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)


Economic         :            Richard H. Thaler


.Physiology       :           Jeffrey C. Hall,    Michael Rosbash,    Michael W. Young


Literature          :           Kazuo Ishiguro,

    

See the past time

The stars we see in the night sky are very far away from us, so far the star light we see has taken a long time to travel across space to reach our eyes. This means whenever we look out into the night and gaze at stars we are actually experiencing how they looked in the past. For example, the bright star Vega is relatively close to us at 25 light-years away, so the light we see left the star 25 years ago.

An Exoplanet

There is an exoplanet, 33 light years from USA. which is completely covered in burning ice.

         Exoplanet is a planet outside our solar system that is moving around a star. There are some “rogue” exoplanets, which are not attached to any star system. The first exoplanet was noticed by the astronaut as early as 1917, but was not recognized as such. Even NASA was not confirmed until the 1990s.

          Astrophysicist Jaymie Matthewswas  of University of British Columbia and his team discovered a Jupiter-size planet around Gamma Cephei in 1988, but its orbit was so smaller than Jupiter’s, the scientists did not claim it as a planet. Then they discovered a another planet  called PSR 1257+12, in 1992. The first confirmed exoplanet, 51 Pegasi b, was discovered in 1995 by Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz. Its mass was about  half  of Jupiter, it orbits around its star was like the distance of Mercury from the Sun. 51 Pegasi b is so close to its  star that it is likely tidally locked, meaning one side always faces the star. They announced two more exoplanets, 70 Virginis and 47 Ursae Majoris, in 1996. The first one completes its orbit in 116 days and the second one in 2.5 years. 

                         

   
       The Butler and Marcy team discover at least 70 of the first 100 exoplanets of the decade. 
  
        The closest exoplanet of our earth is Proxima b, which is four light-years away and moving around the star Proxima Centauri, our nearest star which was discovered  last year. The second closer exoplanet is a Earth-sized planet  Ross 128 b  was found by ESO’s
 High-Accuracy Radial-Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS).

       NASA’s  has launched Kepler Space Telescope in 2009. And it is the start of “modern” era of planet hunting. There are more than 1,000 confirmed exoplanets discovered by this telescope: the Kepler space telescope, which reached orbit in 2009 and searching  planets for four years. Kepler uses a technique called the “transit” method, measuring how much a star's light dims when a planet passes in front of it. The result: more than 2,000 confirmed exoplanets were sifted from the data, the bulk of the more than 3,300 confirmed so far, with more than 2,400 planetary candidates as scientists continue to mine Kepler’s observations.

      The Kepler mission was introduced by William Borucki, a scientist of the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffet Field, California in the 1990s. But NASA rejected his mission designs four times, finally won approval in 2001.

         After completing Kepler mission scientists are still working for discoveries, and there are more to come. There are some projects by NASA like MOST is still operating, and the NASA TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), Swiss CHEOPS (Characterizing ExOPlanets Satellite) and ESA’s PLATO missions are waiting for operation.

        A 3.6-meter telescope La Silla in Chile is leading the Doppler wobble mission, the another mission working on exoplanet.  

        According to NASA there are 3449 confirmed exoplanets from among 4,669 candidates in 2,577 solar systems . Among the confirmed exoplanet there are 1,264 Ice Giants which is composed mainly of elements such as oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur, 1,043 Gas Giants which is composed of gases such as hydrogen and helium, 781       Super-earths which is larger than Earth, but smaller than Uranus or Neptune, 348 terrestrial exoplanets which is rocky planets, composed of silicate rocks or metals and 13 are yet to be classified.

In May 2016 astronaut  found three planets orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1.

The search for exoplanets is also the search for alien life and habitable spaces beyond our solar system.