What could you do if you drilled a tunnel all the way through the Earth and maintained a vacuum in the tunnel? You could jump in and reach the other side of the planet in only 42 minutes. These and other fun facts at How Stuff Work.
There's a straightforward reason we "expelled ourselves from Eden." At heart, we are searchers and explorers, and we seek meaning, among many other things. "CallumCGLP" is the self-identified person who added these beautiful excerpts from Carl Sagan's audio-book, Pale Blue Dot to some new visuals. The result is inspiring:
Several new species of deep sea creatures have been discovered. It's incredible that any form of life can survive at such depths. I couldn't help but think of the phrase "mobile intestinal tracts" when viewing some of these. I'm sure that's oversimplifying, but based on these images, some of these creatures don't seem to have much more going on than a stomach that moves. Which is how I think of some human beings . . .
I follow the Huffington Post carefully on political issues. It's credibility is far lower on health issues and, as Alex Pareene points out at Salon.com, Huffpo has completely dropped the ball in allowing a high ranking member of the Discovery Institute to publish a post blaming Charles Darwin "for eugenics and the Nazis." Shame on Huffington Post for allowing such anti-factual drivel.
I spotted this "daddy longlegs" this weekend, and switched my camera to its macro setting for this photo (click the photo for a much expanded and detailed version):
I looked it up today on Wikipedia and found out, to my surprise, that this animal is not technically a spider (even though it is an arachnid). Rather than a "spider" daddy longlegs are "harvestmen," belonging to the order Opiliones (spiders belong to the order "aranea."