Desert

Have you ever noticed how insects seem to get bigger in certain parts of the world? Take Australia and the Amazon rainforest, for example. They’re notorious for having some of the largest and creepiest crawlies around. What’s the deal with these hotspots of insect activity? Warmth plays a part in insect growth, but it’s not the only factor at play. You won’t get bugs that large out in the desert, for instance, despite the heat. The real secret lies in their access to water. In tropical and subtropical environments, there’s usually plenty of moisture to go around, which means a year-round supply of delicious snacks.

Myths have become an inevitable part of almost every movie, so sometimes it’s really hard to accept the fact that reality can be much different from what is shown on the screen. We decided to bust some of the most persistent movie myths that seem to migrate from one flick to another and irritate many viewers.

The world’s largest waterfall is tucked away underwater! The Denmark Strait cataract is located between Iceland and Greenland. If you suddenly grew fish gills allowing you to comfortably breathe underwater, you’d be able to see a breathtaking series of waterfalls. They begin at 2,000 feet under the surface and then drop for about two miles — down to a depth of 10,000 feet.

Whoosh! Dust storms on Mars can really go crazy! They hurtle through the Red Planet’s Southern Hemisphere, especially during the summer. These storms can grow and encompass large areas of the planet, as happened in January 2022. Then, a dust storm covered almost twice the area of the United States. Could it be something like this that caused one of the robots we sent to Mars to go missing?

“A comfortable abode with a gorgeous view of the Mediterranean Sea will serve as a perfect rain shelter” — this is what a real estate advertisement might have looked like for Neanderthals 100,000 years ago. Welcome to weird and wonderful caves you could live in — or not. Of course, back then, neither real estate and advertising had been invented yet, never mind the fact that Neanderthals couldn’t build houses and often lived in caves. Yet, one of those caves looks an awful lot like a residential building. It’s situated inside a high limestone cape called the Rock of Gibraltar. If the Neanderthals had had an economy, the caves inside this rock would have cost a bundle.

Let’s check out one interesting town surrounded by mountains and woods in upstate New York. This place sits right on a big lake, and the city is called Lake George. People like to come here to go fishing, boating, and take up other water activities. You can meet many fishers, athletes, and a screaming man standing by the shore. Lake George is one of the most popular places in the northern part... Wait a minute. What? A screaming man? What does it mean?

Ah, the desert welcomes you with challenging conditions of abandoned environments and extreme temperatures. Some of us would prefer dessert. Chocolate over sand and rocks. Oh, well. Just like cactuses and camels, buildings have to adapt to these conditions. Here are some examples of astonishing structures in deserts!These structures are called “EARTHSHIPS.” They’re located in a New Mexico desert town. A large community of like-minded people lives in them. What’s even more interesting is that the location of these buildings is registered as dumpsters. Maybe it’s because all these structures are made out of old tires, bottles, and cans.

Octopuses have 3 hearts. Two of them pump blood to the gills while the bigger heart circulates blood to the rest of their body. They also have 9 brains. There’s the large central one. But also, each of their 8 arms has a mini-brain of its own, which is why they can act independently. Since each arm has its own brain, the central brain only sends a higher-level signal to the arm. Things like “move to that nearby crevice, there might be a crab hiding inside”. In the case of humans, the brain would guide and take control of each movement of our legs and arms. And with an octopus, arms act almost independently on their way to the crevice. It also tastes and feels with the suction cups on it. Since their arms are so independent, an octopus doesn’t actually know where they are unless it sees them. The human body has an ability called proprioception. Thanks to it, we know where our arm is even if we hold it, let’s say, behind our back.

You can find many picturesque lakes in Louisiana. But one of them stands out among all the others. This deep lake is calm and beautiful. But its origin is closely connected with the story of a large-scale disaster that changed the entire ecosystem.

This hidden village is called Aogashima. It’s located right in the middle of a volcanic crater! You can find it to the south of Japan, in northernmost Micronesia. The story goes that a volcano erupted in the Philippine Sea in the 1780s, causing a lot of harm to a nearby community. Half of the population managed to escape the massive eruption and came back years later to rebuild their village. At the moment, about 160 people are living there peacefully, even though the volcano is still considered to be active.

Yep, I think it’s safe to say that falling from any height can be really dangerous, but especially when you’ve tumbled out of a plane! And worse, without a parachute. Now, the trick here is to create drag to slow your descent, use your shirt, pants, or do an air snow angel. Anything to slow you down a little bit! But hey, you’ve always wanted to make an impact, right.

You find yourself at a food fair in Iceland when you see it for the first time: volcano bread! You eat a slice, and oddly enough, it actually tastes good! Unsure of how this works, you check out the baking process. Hm. Is this kitchen really strange looking, or is it just me?

Endless hot deserts seem lifeless at first glance. But among these sands, you can meet dangerous and sometimes creepy creatures. Some of them can only cause health problems, but some can stay in your memory forever. Let’s get to know them, starting with dangerous ones and finishing with real nightmares.

The legend goes that a dwarf named Fafnir was famous for his strength and courage. He was the son of a famous dwarf king. Because of his qualities, he was tasked with protecting their kingdom. Dwarfs were known to gather a lot of wealth, so a bit of added security was a must. I mean, they lived in a house made from gold and precious gems. But Fafnir also had another special talent: he was able to shapeshift! Tricked by Loki, the Norse spirit of mischief, Fafnir was taken over by his greed and the shine of his father’s treasure. He decided he did not want to share any of it, not even with his father or his brothers. He stole it and ran away all by himself to a place he’d be hard to find: the middle of the desert.

Now, how about some surreal hidden places to check out? Grab a flashlight and your backpack... and bon voyage! The trip starts in the mountainous country of Switzerland. You travel to the town of Waltensburg in the eastern part of the country. It’s raining, and it’s very cold, but you still make your way to the bottom part of a mountain, where your first adventure awaits. After climbing high up in the mountains, you see a strangely shaped castle. To get there, you must walk up an extremely narrow pathway. “Don’t look down!” you think to yourself. You tighten the straps of your backpack and manage to walk along the pass.

Antarctica is the most remote continent on the planet. It has 90% of the world’s ice, but it’s considered a desert because the annual rainfall is only about 8 inches. You’d probably never think it was a desert if you look at it since it’s white and full of wildlife. But Antarctica is not only what it appears to be on the surface — there is so much hidden beneath it. And even above it.

Alright. You’re scuba diving in the ocean, watching corals and colorful fish flitting by, when suddenly an enormous shadow appears above you. You look up and see a massive creature approaching you, its mouth a gaping abyss... Relax, just stay still and you’ll be fine.

We’ve all dreamed of visiting the Arctic and witnessing the natural wonders of polar bears frolicking on ice floes or the aurora borealis dancing across the sky. Well, sorry to break it to you, but you won’t find any tourists flocking to Antarctica anytime soon. Why, you may ask? Let’s dive into it! First off, where is Antarctica? It’s located in the Southern Hemisphere, specifically at the South Pole.

The problem with that asteroid that destroyed dinosaurs was not that it fell, but WHERE it fell. This colossal space rock found the worst place where it could land. Also, the angle at which it hit the ground was the most unfortunate. If it had fallen vertically, there would have been less destruction. But it fell at such an angle that it threw a huge amount of dust into the air. After the disaster occurred, tons of soot started burning. 65 million years ago, only 13% of Earth’s surface contained the right amount of sulfur and oil needed to form a colossal amount of soot. If the asteroid had fallen on the other 87% of the territory, dinosaurs could still be living today. But it hit the worst place and lifted a million tons of burning material into the sky.

Wanna check out the scariest roads in the world where strange things happen to people? Here we go.

If there were cataclysms on Earth every 5 minutes, living conditions on our planet would be almost the same as 4.5 billion years ago. Back then, seas and oceans boiled, lightning struck everywhere, tectonic plates changed their shape, lava flowed from volcanoes. And worse, no internet! The Earth resembled a vast, boiling cauldron, where life was gradually being created. If it starts to boil again, this cauldron could destroy almost all life on the planet.

Why is Australia so strangely empty? Why haven’t we discovered so much of the Ocean? Is our planet a perfect sphere? And was the Earth once more purple than green? I bet you didn’t know these facts about our planet, so let’s find it all out!

Weird unusual sounds out of nowhere are spreading all over our galaxy, constantly repeating, and it’s something we’ve never heard before... Scientists discovered it in 2020, and it was nothing like any of the other energy signatures they ever studied.Powerful and bright radio signals occurring from time to time, mysteriously disappearing within a day. It doesn’t fit the profile of any space body we know. The signal is a bit irritating, and it disappears without a schedule. When scientists tried to match the signal with some other telescopes, it was gone. Low-mass stars sometimes flare up with radio energy, but not here since they mostly have X-ray counterparts. Very dense collapsed stars like Pulsars, Magnetars are also not a choice.

The ocean is turning red-hot! You try to get closer for a better look, but you start feeling the air getting hotter and hotter like reaching into an oven! And the sand is so hot that your rubber slippers start melting! The ocean’s somehow turned into steamy hot gooey lava! You start running inland and see a frenzy of people running wild. See in reality, lava is made of molten rocks from below the earth’s surface. Deep inside our planet, like the distance between New York and Philadelphia deep, the underground heat from the core melts rocks the same way the sun melts ice cream. When these rocks melt, their temperatures can reach around 2,200 °F! [(1,200 °C)]