Alexandria Genesis – the Most Beautiful Mutation

Alexandria genesis, also known like The Purple eye is a very rare genetic mutation which causes small number of conditions. Believe it or not, we still don’t known if this disease actually exists.

People who would have the condition would notice a change of color to purple in their eyes after six months of life.

 During the puberty and the rest of the life the purple color would only become darker. People with this condition would have hair only on their head, they would have high metabolism and women with this condition would not menstruate, but they would be fertile.

Also, these humans would live more than 150 years.

 Their metalic and pale skin would be resistant to sunburns. These people simply wouldn’t be growing old after their 50^th year and the mutation would be transferred to their children, getting stronger with every new generation. 

These facts maybe look fantastic, but the question is: does Alexandria genesis exist?

Scientists think that this mutation is not real. 

Violet eyes are technically possible but they are extremely sensitive to sun light. To be fertile without menstrual periods is biologically impossible. Some animals have this condition, but human anatomy and physiology are different and fertility and menstruations are always connected.

 Humans with white skin color are more sensitive to sun. Having hair only on the head is possible (Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome), but when it happens to women, they do not have a uterus, they are infertile.

 Such high metabolism is impossible, because the body would be too hot on that level. Also, the oldest human who ever lived was 122 years old and the age of 150 years seems unreachable right now.

However, there has been a real case of a person born with these conditions in 1329 in London. The girl is known as Alexandria and she was born with purple eyes and her children and grandchildren lived well over 100 years.

 It is fun to imagine people with these incredible characteristic exist, but unluckily they don’t. 

Maybe humans will mutate someday to have these features.

Why there is no Grape Ice Cream?

In the summer, when it is very hot, the best way to cool down is having an ice cream. Probably you have already tasted many different types of ice cream, with lots of different flavors. But have you tasted grape ice cream? I bet you haven’t.

Grape is one of most common and healthy foods in world, but we can’t make ice cream of it.  

The reason for that is one compound called anthocyanin.

 This substance is an antioxidant and it is present a lot in the grape. Also, the grape gets the color from this substance.

Anthocyanin has a molecular structure which prevents it from freezing. 

It is like a natural antifreeze and because of it the grape can’t freeze. Also, most of the flavor is contained in the skin and if we take it away all the skin, only sugar will remain in the ice cream.

 Simply, you can’t make ice cream of grape.

In case you have eaten grape ice cream, you should know that you have tasted synthetic aroma of grape. 

Organic Substance As Hard As a Diamond

Probaply you have already heard that diamond is the hardest and most consistent material in the world. Diamonds are made of pure graphite (carbon), and they get the hard and symmetrical structure thanks to the great pressure and ideal temperature. This material has the ideal internal structure.

Diamond is an inorganic substance, but there are organisms that can produce similar hard substances. That biological substance it is strong as steal and it is produced by little marine oysters called limpets. Previously, the spider silk was the hardest natural material in the world.

 

The secret is in their teeth. You would need a microscope to see them. Their teeth are composed of very thin, tightly-packed fibers containing hard mineral called goethite. It is a very hard mineral and it is made from ferric iron.

Limpets use these teeth to scrape the food from the rock. This material had a hardness of 5 Gigapascals, about five times more than spider silk. The secret is in the size of their fibers which are 1/100^th the diameter of the human hair.

Larger structures have many flaws and the chances for breaking are larger than with smaller structure. 

Ultrathin fibers are packed ideally and don’t have flaws. Bigger things are always more fragile than smaller thing. That is because of the smaller cohesion in the substance.

This is real and it is amazing.

Why and How Do Thunders Appear?

Someone has the opportunity to hear thunders in this moment. We know that thunders are the result of weather conditions. But why do they appear and why does the sound come later than the light?

Thunders appear during very unstable weather. The thunder is natural electricity - short emission of static electricity between two clouds or between the cloud and ground. When the electricity passes through the air then the particles vibrate and this vibration is the sound which we listen. 

The light is faster than the sound and that is reason why we first see the light and then hear the thunder. This natural appearance has very strong electricity with voltage of 100 million Volts and amperage of few hundred Ampers.

Lightning and thunder are the same appearance, basically. Lightning is the visual part and thunder is the sound effect of this spectacular appearance in nature. 

So, next time you see a thunderbolt expect the sound because it can scare you. See the video bellow. 

The Evolution of Humans Illustrated

Homo sapiens, or humans, exist for 0.2 million year. This period is just a drop in the whole ocean of evolution. 

The first organisms which have appeared were probably unicellular anaerobic organisms and they have lived around 3,000 million years ago.

 From then to today these organisms have developed into other organisms, including humans. 

There is a lot of evidence for this theory, which are the fossils which we discover every year. This process of evolution is present for a very long time. All organisms on Earth are still developing and evolving, one reason for this being better adaptation to their environment. Look at the video, which illustrates how humans have evolved.

Fashion Collection Made Out Of Milk

When you touch this dresss, you will think that it is made of silk. But that’s not silk, but a special material which is made from cow milk. German fashion designer and biologist Anke Domaske is the first one who made this material and then used it to make a fashion collection.

We use milk as a nutrient, but the milk has compounds which are good for creating other different stuff. Really, the creation of this dress from milk is amazing, but who did they create it?

The primary compound of this material is a milk protein called casein. They successfully separated the casein from the liquid part of milk. The final product is a protein line. A line of this protein has similar structure to cotton.

 Unlike cotton, the material made from cow milk doesn’t have pesticides and other chemicals and it takes only one hour to create it.

The milk which has been used to make these dresses was not for human use. 6 liters of milk were needed to make an entire dress. One dress costs about 150 to 200 Euro. In the following video you can see everything about these “normal” dresses. 

The Quietest Room in the World Could Make You Crazy

Sometimes, even a little silence is good for every one of us. But there is a room in USA so quiet that you wouldn’t stay in for more than 20 minutes. This room is made by Orfield Laboratories.

The anechoic chamber is behind two heavy doors, encased with double walls of steal and 30-centimeter thick concrete.

 The floor in the room is made from concrete and fiberglass blocks.

 This place is the quietest in the world. 99 percent of the sounds stays out of the room.

When you enter inside the quiet room, you feel isolated from the world. In these quietness, the ears start to accommodate to the environment. 

You’ll hear your heart beating, and you can even listen to your lungs and you stomach gurgling loudly.

Inside the quiet room you are actually the only sound-making object. You are the sound itself that stays in the room.

The longest time that anyone stayed in the anechoic (echo- free) chamber is 45 minutes.

Staying in that place makes people anxious. Any movement creates sounds, thus you wouldn’t feel comfortable to move. Many people have started hallucinating in this room.

The quiet room is used for a lot of experiments. NASA used the quiet room for space experiments. In many cases the quietest place on Earth is used for testing sound producing machines and products. 

This is a Bacteria That Eats Plastic

If you look around, you would notice that most of the things are made of plastic. Great part of the plastic gets thrown away in the environment. That results in a lot of disorders of the surface and water ecosystem. Plastic is a material which is made from simple compounds with the process called polymerization.

In 1975 Japanese scientists discovered bacteria which can eat plastic. 

The discovered species was Flavobacterium. So far we have discovered 600 species of bacteria that eat plastic. 

Most of them produce biopolymers. Some of these biopolymers are used for energy. 

The bacteria has types of enzymes which degrade polymers.

However, there are other species that can also eat plastic. The Indian mealmoth (the larvae of Plodia interpunctella) was seen chewing and eating polyethylene films.

 In their digestive system, scientists found two species of bacteria: Enterobacter aburiae and Bacillus sp.

 They are in symbiosis with its larvae. The bacteria digests the plastic to simple compounds. 

That is the reason why these insects can exist in nearly impossible living conditions.

The enzymes have developed after several mutations. Bacteria are microorganisms which mutate very fast and they adapt to environment changes easily. 

This is a result of evolution, of course since there was no plastic in the past. These species of bacteria could be used for cleaning the ocean from the plastic or for recycling.

The Rebirth of the Eagle – Fact or Myth?

There are around 60 different species of eagles on the planet. Many of them live in Eurasia and Africa. Only two types on eagles live in North America and other three species in Australia. These birds are raptors, with a life span of 70 years. Eagles can live much longer than all other bird species.

But, in order to live 70 years, every eagle must bring a decision earlier. In their 40^th year of life or so, the eagle’s claws are long and elastic and because of that they can’t catch their pray. 

Their beak is curved and the wings are heavy. Then, the eagle must make a decision: die or pass through very cruel process of change which persists for 150 days.

That process includes couple of

stages.

 Firstly, the eagle must fly to the top of a mountain in its own nest. Then, the bird beats its beak of the rock until it falls. Then, the eagle waits for the new beak to grow. With the new beak, the bird pulls out its talons. Then, the eagle uses its new nails to pluck all its feathers. This is a rebirth for the eagle and now it can lives for more than 30 years.

During these 150 days the eagle doesn’t eat or drink. Amazing, huh? Well, it’s not exactly true. It’s only a myth. Eagles can’t survive without their beaks and talons.

This is a famous myth that comes from China. The myth of the eagle is used as an explanation for the human life. In the past, death and life could be explained only with myths, because the people were more connected with the nature. Many times, we must make big changes in our life in order to survive. This is a myth that perfectly explains the meaning of human life.

Why Are Babies (Human or Animal) Cute?

Every human reacts positively when they see some little baby or a small animal. Little creatures are cute for everyone, but why is that? The science is here to give a response on this question.

This question was answered in the middle of the last century from the Austrian biologist and ethologist Konrad Loreinz and his coworkers. They made one scheme which he called kinderschema. In this scheme he included set of traits that we identify as cute and adorable.

Small things are cute because they have traits like: large head compared to the body size, eyes below the midline of the head, rounded body shape, short fingers and toes, chubby legs and arms, big eyes and soft and elastic body.

Have in mind that the eyes of a baby are the same size as adults’, but because of their small head they look large.

Also, small animals have these traits and every organism is born with these traits. The reason for this is connected to evolution.

 Our brain has been adapted to take care of their offspring. The brain reacts on a baby as cute in order to take more care for it. This is one of the tricks of evolution, and you must admit a very effective one. Enjoy the pictures. 

Dinosaur with Four Wings Discovered in China

In the last few years we have read about many proofs that bird are dinosaurs’ successors. The discovery of a dinosaur named Arhaeopteriks was the first evidence for this theory.

This dinosaur lived 150 million years ago and it has the title of world’s first bird. 

It was a dinosaur with feathery wings which could fly like today’s birds.

Paleontologists in China have discovered a different dinosaur which had four wings.

 This dinosaur was named Changyuraptor yangi and it is estimated that it lived 125 million years ago. 

The body of this dinosaur was covered with feathers. It was 1.3 meters long and it had a very long tail which was also covered with long feathers. With this dimensions, this dinosaur is considered to be the biggest four-wing dinosaurs.

The long feathers allowed the animal to fly or levitate. It used the long tail to secure its flights. In the past it was believed that only small dinosaurs could fly. But with the discovery of this four-wing dinosaurs we see that bigger dinosaurs could also fly.

Many elements which we connect with birds actually date from the era of the dinosaurs. 

Laying eggs, feathers, holey bones and flying first appeared some 150 million year ago. 

This is a proof of the theory that states that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Read more about this theory HERE. 

The Sky Is Actually Violet, but We See It as Blue

Sun is the only source of light for us. The Sun creates heat and light which travel to Earth and to other planets around it with the process of fission. The Sun deliver white light to us. This white light contains all the primary colors. Light travels in space as waves. Every color of the white light has its own wavelength. Violet and blue have short wavelength. The red color has the longest wavelength. All other colors are somewhere in between.

Small particles and molecules which fly in the Earth atmosphere have the starring role in sky coloring. When light passes through the atmosphere, most of it collides with molecules and is reflected back in space. This is very important, since if all light passed through the atmosphere, then the life on Earth would be impossible.

So, the light is constantly being reflected from the dust particles and water molecules. These particles and molecules reflect only the violet and blue colors of the light spectrum. They absorb the others.

The violet color is more often reflected first compared to blue. However, our eyes are more sensitive to blue color and that’s why we see the sky as blue.

On the other hand, red color passes through atmosphere. The red wavelength are used by plants in the process of photosynthesis.

What Does Space Smells Like?

You can’t smell the space, but you should know that it is full with many different aromas. The space is full of many small particles and compounds which move all around. This compound come from old stars and new super stars. Meteors, asteroids and comets are full of different compounds called hydrocarbons (they are present in every organism on Earth).

The only people who has smelled the space are astronauts. They’ve first noticed the smell after coming back from a spacewalk. That aroma has been compared to the smell of burnt steak and hot metal.

The reason for this smell of seared steak of space is the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.  In the space there are many inclement processes and these compounds are products of these reactions.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are present in our homes and environment, too. They can be found in coal, oil, chimneys and some foods.

This is a proof that we are made from this small particles which move around space and make some other organisms or planets. Next time you fry meat, think that you’re smelling space.

Frankenstein-dinosaur Discovered In Chile.

One of the biggest nightmares one could have is meeting with Tyrannosaurus rex(T-rex) in real life. T-rex is the king of all predators in history. It had strong neck and legs and very large and sharp teeth. But the paleontologists discovered one strange dinosaur that belongs to the same group of dinosaurs as T-rex in 2004.

Chile is land where we have discovered many fossils of dinosaurs. In one location paleontologists discovered bones which they believe belong to several species of dinosaurs. When they connected the bones they discovered that all bones belonged to one dinosaur. This species of dinosaur was called Chilesaurus.

It has legs and arms like a Tyrannosaurus rex and it had a body similar to Brontosaurus’. Chilesaurus had been vegetarian and it has been 3 meters long. This unusual body confused paleontologists.

The question here is: Why had it had legs like T-rex if it had ben vegetarian? Also, Chilesaurus had pelvis like flying dinosaurs and it had four fingers on its feet. It had lived 140 million years ago (T-rex has lived 70 million years ago). So this dinosaur had features of three distinct dinosaurs.

“This is one of most bizarre dinosaurs,” says one of the paleontologists who made the discovery.

For now, it is believed that this dinosaurs belongs to a new species of theropoda.

Cat’s Purring Benefits Both Cats and Humans

Everybody knows that cats purr when they’re feeling pleasure. But evolution brings to us some evidence for the other benefits that cats get from purring, as well as humans. Cats evolved to live better in their environments. There are more theories that explain the cat’s purring.

According to the first one, purring is a result of activity in the throat and diaphragm muscles, while another theory states that it happens because of the lingual bone, which is placed right under the tongue.

Purring is vital for kittens. After they’re born, kittens are blind and they are communicate with their mother through purring sounds. Little kittens use purring for communication when hiding from the predators. Kittens start to purr two days after birth. Cats also purr when they give birth.

Not only cats benefit from purring. Humans do, too. The frequency of a cat’s purring is somewhere between 25 and 100 Hz. The same sound frequency is used as treatments for some bone diseases. Scientists have discovered that hypersonic waves from the cat’s purring helps to recover bones and treat rheumatism.

Maybe you don’t know this, but the cat are not the only animals that purr. Other animals include: gorillas, rabbits, lemurs, elephants and hyenas, but cats are the only ones that do it while breathing. Big cats like lions, tigers and panthers do not purr.

The Egg Came First, And We Know Why

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This questions has caused debates since Aristotle (384-322 bc), who said that both the chicken and the egg must had always existed.

Stephen Hawkins, the famous astrophysicist, once said that it’s the egg that came first.

In 2010 we got the first scientific answer. Namely, scientists founded a protein called ovocleidin-17 in the eggshell, which is created by chickens only. This theory proves that chicken came first.

However, the question remains unclear. Where did the chicken come from? Science has given us one logical theory about that, too.

Many, many years ago there have existed a chicken-like bird. It was genetically very similar to today’s chicken but it was not the same. Scientists call it proto-chicken. One proto-chicken has laid an egg, and the proto-roster has fertilized it.

A mutation has occurred in this egg. The chicken that came out of this mutated egg was same as today’s chicken. So, it was the egg that came first after all.

In addition to that, today’s birds are believed to be successors of dinosaurs, and dinosaurs has reproduced with eggs. Again, it was the egg that came out first.

So, maybe the question we should be asking is: which come first, the proto-chicken or the proto-chicken egg?

Beware Of This Fly – It Might Make You Sleep Much More

Sleeping sickness is a parasite disease which is often found in African countries in the region below Sahara. There are two species of parasite that cause this disease: Trypanosoma brucei gambiense and Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense.

The first one appears in the west part of Africa and it infects animals and people. Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense appears in the central and south parts of Africa and this parasite infects only animals. This disease was discovered first in the 14 century, but the first scientist who discovered the cause and transmitter of this parasite was David Bruce in 1902 year.

The insect that transmits the trypanosome is tse-tse fly. The fly feeds on blood. When the fly drinks blood from an infected animal or person, one small part of the parasite always moves into the fly’s intestine.

In the intestine, the parasite splits into more and then they all enter the salivary glands. When the fly feed on blood people the parasite enters the blood. This process lasts over a period of three weeks. During that time, the fly infects as much people as it can.

The first symptoms of sleeping sickness are tension headache and high body temperature. Then the parasite attacks kidneys and the endocrine system, and it progresses with infecting the nerve system, including the brain. Because of that, people have the uncontrollable urge to sleep. This sickness could be fatal if not treated.