The Life Changer Butte Nugget

If you have larceny in your heart, you are out of luck, a dream by its nature is usually etherial and vaporous, but that is not the case for an unknown person of Paradise. The “Butte Nugget” was found by a prospector in California in 2014 by using a metal detector. He dig up a piece of iron rubbish, but unearthed lifetime of this monster nugget. It is believed to be one of the largest gold discoveries in California in the past century, weighing more than five pounds of solid gold. The Butte Nugget confirmed weight was 75 troy ounces, it has no quartz inclusions and gold from this area is generally very high purity. Somehow the place of discovery was not revealed, but it was found somewhere in Butte County, which has always been a major producer of gold in the state. Many millions of ounces in gold have been found here since the early days of the gold rush. The Butte Nugget is the second largest extant placer gold nugget in California. The biggest nugget is the 100 troy ounces "Mojave Nugget." The estimates value put this as going for between $250,000 and $400,000.

Some of the primary mining districts in Butte County when it comes to producing gold are Magalia in Yankee Hill and Oroville District. The Yankee Hill district had the largest lode production between 1929 till 1959; approximately 30,000 ounces of gold were produced. Although substantial production took place during the 1800’s but very poor production records exist during that time. The Oroville District the southern part of Butte County production records 1964130 ounces of gold between 1903 and 1959. This impressive amount of gold that was found within the Oroville district made it the largest producer of gold in Butte County, primarily obtained because of bucket line dredge operations that worked the river gravels.

 

 

The Walking Palm Tree

There is a palm tree that has allegedly developed a rather unique ability unbecoming of a plant “the ability to walk”. The palm tree is “Socratea exorrhiza”, also nicknamed the “Walking Palm”. The scientists are incapable of elaborate the tree’s strange stilt-like roots. This palm tree can found in tropical rainforests of Central and South America, develops long and sturdy roots, grow outwards from the base of the tree, several feet off the ground, and take root in the soil around, giving it the appearance of multiple legs. It wasn’t long before people started to observe that palm tree roots actually act like legs enabling him to literally walk in the forest. This unbelievable story of the walking palm tree has been told by rainforest guides to visitors for many years, and appears in many sources both in social media and print. It is believed, tree “walks” from shade to sunlight by growing roots in the direction it wants to travel, and then letting the old roots to gradually lift into the air and die. This allows the tree to sluggishly move towards the side where the new roots are growing. This process takes couple of years, however, one palaeobiologist signifying the tree moves two or three centimeters per day. It’s such a fascinating story that many tend to believe it, like our palaeobiologist friend, unluckily; the walking tree is a myth. In 1980, John H. Bodley first present the idea of the walking tree, who thought this ability lets the palm to “walk away” from the point of germination if another tree falls on the seedling and knocks it over. Hence, this way the tree can move away from obstacles that are major hazards for immature palms. S. exorrhiza flowers mostly during the dry season and is considered to be beetle pollinated, seeds weigh around 3.5 g and are around 2 cm long and 1.5 cm wide, only around 45% of them germinate and around one quarter of these die. The palm tree trunk is used in the construction of houses and other structures, as well as hunting spears. It is usually split lengthwise before it is used, but it can also be hollowed out and used as a tube.

The Socratea exorrhiza, detailed study observed that the walking tree can't walk because its roots don't move. A few roots on one side or another may die off, but the trunk itself remains rooted to the spot. Some people want to see the Socratea exorrhiza walking. Also, no such time lapse movie exists. Hence, the belief of the walking palm is just a myth. The palm tree could actually track canopy light changes by moving slowly over the forest floor is a myth that tourist guides find diverting to tell visitors to the rainforest. This myth was also debunked in the December 2009 when no one is around trees walk the rainforest floor, it is a mere myth. However, researchers are still uncertain what role these exclusive stilt roots play. Some suggest that the multiple roots let the tree to be more stable in swampy areas, or when there is too much debris in the ground as they can avoid it by moving their roots. Moreover, it has been suggested that stilt roots let the palm to grow taller to reach light without having to increase the diameter of the stem, thus investing in less biomass in underground roots than other palms. Of course, none of these theories have ever been confirmed. Thus, the noteworthy point is that, nobody has seen these palm trees walk.

The Mysterious Fukang Meteorite

When it slammed into the surface of Earth, there was little sign of the beauty that lay inside, because cutting the Fukang meteorite open yielded a breathtaking sight. Within the rock, translucent golden crystals of a mineral called olivine gleamed among a silvery honeycomb of nickel-iron. In China in 2000, the mysterious fukang meteorite, unearthed believed to be some 4.5 billion years old, which is as ancient as Earth itself. It is a pallasite, a type of meteorite with translucent golden crystals of a mineral called olivine embedded in a silvery honeycomb of nickel-iron. It’s a dazzling meteorite, and maybe the most spectacular extraterrestrial piece of rock man has ever seen. This majestic Fukang meteorite was found by a hiker, who had often stopped and had lunch on this giant rock, and he always questioned what the metal and crystals were. Eventually he decided and took a hammer and chisel and broke some pieces off, which he sent to the USA to confirm that it was a meteorite.

The original meteorite weighted just over a 1,000 kilogram, but the rock was so dazzling that everybody wanted a piece of it. Since then it has been divided into dozens of thin slices and auctioned or distributed around the world. Therefore, a total of 31 kilograms of specimen is on deposit at University of Arizona. Marvin Kilgore of the University of Arizona's Southwest Meteorite Centre holds the largest portion weighing at 420 Kg. In Feb 2005 saw the Chinese space rock transported all the way to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, in Tucson, Arizona. The U.S. lab claims their polished slice of the original meteorite is the world's biggest pallasite cross section, measuring 36in by 19in.

In 2008, this piece was expected to fetch $2 million at an auction at Bonham's in New York, but unluckily, the likely bidders were more impressed with a couple of pieces of 130-million-year-old fossilized dinosaur’s dung that day, which sold at more than twice the estimate. According to Bonhams, pallasites are composed of approximately 50 % olivine and peridot crystals and 50 cent nickel-iron, and believed to be the relics of forming planets. They actually make up less than one per cent of meteorites, and believed to originate from deep inside intact meteors formed during the formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago and very few specimens are thought to have survived their descent through Earth's atmosphere.

Giant Tunnels Dug by Massive Sloths

Deep inside Brazil, there are tunnels large enough for an individual to walk through. The tunnels are very neat symmetrical too have been caused by any known geologic process, may be lined with claw marks. These mammoth tunnels are perhaps the craft of giant ground sloths humongous "paleoburrows" that no longer walk the Earth. The largest tunnel measured 2,000 feet long, 6 feet tall and 3 to 5 feet wide. An estimated 4,000 metric tons of dirt and rock were dug out of the hillside to create the burrow. It was evidently the work of not one or two individuals but several generations.

However tens of thousands of years after these megafauna did their digging, those tunnels still dot this part of South America. This discovery has a great feature up about it and up until the 2000s; little was known or written about this bounty of holes. But since he came upon his first one near Novo Hamburgo, Brazilian scientist Heinrich Frank has found more than 1,500 tunnels, found burrows that measure hundreds of feet long. Researchers have exposed one with branching tunnels that. It had to have been dug by numerous creatures over generations, not by one or two giant sloths. However, the big open question comes in mind, why?

The tunnels appear to be much larger than any burrowing animal would need to get away from bad weather or hungry predators. Some believes the burrows were dug by a genus of giant ground sloths, as large as modern elephants, that once lived in South America. Because they were some of the biggest land mammals on earth exceeded in size only by the mammoth. However, others believe that extinct armadillos, which were smaller than the giant sloths, were responsible for the burrows. Courtsey: CP

Mysterious Underwater ‘Crop Circles’

Planet earth is so strange, what lies keep underwater on earth has yet to be seen by human eyes. The discovery of amazing little puffer fish capable of creating elaborately designed ‘crop circles’ at the bottom of the ocean as part of an elaborate mating ritual. The behavior was first documented by a photographer Yoji Ookata as articles bounced around the web it was still difficult to imagine how a tiny fish could create such a large design in the sand, even when staring directly at photographic evidence.

Japanese’s photographer Yoji Ookata devoted his life just for exploring the planet earth, spent the last 50 years exploring and documenting his discoveries off the coast of Japan. One day, Ookata found something strange near Amami Oshima, which he had never been witnessed before, rippling geometric sand patterns almost 6 feet in diameter, 80 feet below sea level.

He came back, and returned with colleagues & television crew from the nature program NHK to document the mystery circle. He holds the underwater camera to capture the mystery circle and reasons behind this marvel.  He & his team discovered that strange design naturally design by small puffer fish only few inches in length that swims tirelessly through day and night to create vast organic sculpture using the gesture of a single fine.

Therefore, after careful observation the team found the circles serve a variety of crucial ecological functions, the most important of which is to entice mates. However, the female fish are fascinated to the hills and valleys within the sand and traverse them carefully to discover the male fish where the pair eventually lay eggs at the circle’s center, the grooves later acting as a natural buffer to ocean currents that protect the delicate offspring. Moreover, researchers also learned that the more ridges contained within the sculpture resulted in a much greater likelihood of the fish pairing.

 

 

 

 

 

The Transparent Glass Frogs, Which Internal Organs Are Visible Through Skin

Probably you’ve never seen such breathtaking creatures on earth. Yeah, this is really transparent frogs! Known to eat their own young!  EEEK! The glass frogs belong to amphibian family Centrolenidae (order Anura). Among the several strange and captivating amphibians on our planet, very special are the Glass Frogs. While the general background coloration of most glass frogs is primarily lime green, the abdominal skin of some members of this family is translucent. The internal viscera, including the heart, liver, and gastrointestinal tract, are visible through the skin The beautiful Glass frogs are a diverse family, ranging from Mexico to Panama, through the Andes from Venezuela and the island of Tobago to Bolivia, with some species in the Amazon and Orinoco River basins, the Guiana, and southeastern Brazil, and northern Argentina. As the global climate is changing, some of the rain- and cloud forests where Glass Frogs live are becoming too dry, making life difficult for the frogs. By watching the glass frogs, scientists can learn what impact global warming has on these forests and the astonishing species that inhabit them.

The Gross frogs are mostly live in in trees along the river in forests and rainforests allows them to lay their eggs on leaves hanging over the river.  Hence, at the time of eggs hatch, the tadpoles drop straight into the water. This wonderful frog family has a transparent skin, letting you to view inside its small body, looks as if they melt into the leaves and become one with them. Transparent animals like these frogs are spectacular to see, however glassfrogs are mostly active at night, which makes them very difficult to spot for predators. Conservationists are especially interested in transparent frogs because they may be good bioindicators. A bioindicator is a species that provides clues about the health of the environment where it lives.

Sci-fi Plan to Hang a wandering Skyscraper from Asteroid Orbiting Earth is Unveiled

That really is a high rise? A New York architecture firm has unveiled designs for a skyscraper that is out of this world and imaginations. Deemed the “World’s tallest building ever”, Analemma Tower will be suspended from an orbiting asteroid 31,068 miles above the Earth & the only way to leave is by parachute. The orbital path would swing the tower in a figure eight pattern between the northern and southern hemispheres each day, taking residents on a tour through different parts of the world all in just a 24 hour orbital cycle. Therefore, the radical design was created by Clouds Architecture Office, which is also the mastermind behind proposals for a Mars house and a cloud city. The latest design Tower, will 'overturn the established skyscraper typology', as it builds from the sky down, instead of the ground up.

The company explains, through the course of history humanity has been able to affect the environment on increasing scales, hence massive skyscraper will be setup in sections and each with a designated purpose. However, business will be conducted at the lower end of the towers and sleeping quarters will be positioned two-thirds of the way up the building. Moreover, inhabitants will also have access to a gardening area, a place for worship and in the bottom level will be sections for dining, shopping and entertainment. The architects plan to take full advantage of the skyscraper's location and will place solar panels at the upper most levels to generate power from the sun. Further, inhabitants will relish fresh water from condensation of clouds and rainwater, which will be collected & purified. Nowadays our activity is being registered on a global scale. So why not apply design thinking on a planetary scale? Analemma Tower will be an example of a mixed use building that incorporates planetary design strategies, yielding the world’s tallest building ever. It seems that architect is not just developing a massive skyscraper, but is also designing a floating city. It will be setup into sections, each with a designated purpose. The architect firm plans to design shape-shifting windows that change size and height in order to deal with pressure and temperature differentials.

The design will use a system called the Universal Orbital Support System (UOSS), which attaches a high strength cable to an asteroid that is lowered to Earth and then attached to the tower. Since this new tower typology is suspended in the air, it can be constructed anywhere in the world and transported to its final location. The proposal calls for Analemma to be constructed over Dubai, which has proven to be a specialist in tall building construction at one fifth the cost of New York City construction. Clouds Architecture Office shared on its website. Though some may question the firm’s ability to capture an asteroid for the project, Clouds Architecture Office believes its idea will soon no longer be just a concept from science fiction films.

In 2015 the European Space Agency flashed a new round of investment in asteroid mining concerns by proving with its Rosetta mission that it's likely to rendezvous and land on a spinning comet, shared the firm. Furthermore, NASA has scheduled an asteroid retrieval mission for 2021 which aims to show the feasibility of capturing and relocating an asteroid. The tower would travel on a figure 8th path over certain major cities in the northern and southern hemispheres, includes New York City, Havana, Atlanta and Panama City. Therefore, the amount of daylight increases by 40 to 45 minutes at the top of the tower due to the curvature of the Earth. Analemma can be placed in a peculiar geosynchronous orbit which would let it to travel between the northern and southern hemispheres on a daily loop,’ Clouds Architecture Office explained. The ground trace for this pendulum tower would be a figure eight, where the tower would move at its sluggish speed at the top and bottom of the figure eight letting the possibility for the towers occupants to interface with the planet’s surface at these points. The proposed orbit is calibrated so the gentlest part of the towers trajectory occurs over New York City.’ However, while studying atmospheric conditions for the project, the team discovered that there is most likely a height that people could not bear due to the extreme conditions. For example, though there may be a benefit to having 45 extra minutes of daylight at an elevation of 32,000 meters, the close vacuum and -40C temperature would prevent people from going outside without a protective suit,’ shared Clouds Architecture Office. Then again, astronauts have continually occupied the space station for decades, so perhaps it’s not so bad?