Java Script

Hello All!
A quick site update, I've figured out how to get javascript to display a text bubble when you hover the mouse over an underlined word. So, from now on underlined words can be hovered over for extra information (in most cases) Example:
The Gladius was an invaluable weapon when fighting barbarians.
The hover feature takes a second to kick and I can't fix that so sorry!

27th Guessing Article

Congratulations to Denver :D, for guessing the previous animal- the Spaghetti Worm.

1. I am an element
2. I am lighter than Mercury
3. I am heavier than Zinc

10 Points on the Guessing Article

Congratulations to everyone who has successfully guessed on a guessing article. From now on, if you score 10, 20, 30, 40, etc points, you will be able to create your own guessing article. You can choose whether it is an animal, element, person or place.

26th Guessing Article

Congratulations to ThomasGeoGuy for guessing the previous place- The Kopff Crater (on the moon!) 

1. I am an animal
2. I am an aquatic animal
3. I live in the Pacific

Nuclear Power

Nuclear Power is undoubtedly the an incredible power, producing no carbon emissions whatsoever. The Nuclear Energy Institute (http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/World-Statistics) states that there are 438 nuclear reactors in 30 different countries and 67 nuclear reactors under construction in 15 countries.
Roughly 10% of the worlds energy is generated by nuclear power, but people are terrified of the potential destruction of a meltdown in a nuclear reactor.

http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/World-Statistics

A uranium pellet the size of a Pencil eraser produces the same amount of energy of 738 tonnes of coal. Unfortunately, nuclear reactor disasters in the past like Chernobyl and Fukushima have created a fear in many countries that refuse to allow nuclear reactors. For example, Australia has 31% of the worlds uranium and geologically stable ground, but the country has only one nuclear reactor in Sydney that produces medicine. OPAL (or Open Pool Australia Light-Water Reactor) is Australia's only functioning nuclear reactor (http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/Appendices/Australian-Research-Reactors/) produces many medical substances along with irradiating silicon. By irradiating silicon, it changes a very small amount of the silicon into phosphorous, making it significantly more conductive.

25th Guessing article

Congratulations to Denver :D for guessing the previous person Bryan Grieg Fry. 

1. I am a place
2. I am on the moon
3. Crater was formed by an impact from a body that was still partly molten.
4. I am on the Western Limb of the Moon.

Sharks of the World and History- Bull Shark

The Bull Shark (Carchahinus Leucas) is one of the most formidable sharks in the ocean. 

http://www.sharks-world.com/wp-content/uploads/bull_shark_624.jpg

Bull Sharks are known to eat whatever they can get. This means that they eat fish, dolphins, turtles, birds, molluscs and some terrestrial animals including cattle, people, antelope and rats. They will attack almost anything in the water, but they have something most sharks don't have. They can tolerate incredible levels of freshwater, commonly swimming up rivers and tributaries. They are considered by some to be the most dangerous of all sharks due to the coupling of their habitat, diet and aggression. They are also known to be cannibals!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/Cypron-Range_Carcharhinus_leucas.svg/2000px-Cypron-Range_Carcharhinus_leucas.svg.png

Bull Sharks have earned their name with a signature head but they normally perform before eating the prey to stun it. They are also extremely territorial and are known to attack many different species of intruders such as crocodiles and alligators.

https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-e482cb63e00d42c1388752850714a438?convert_to_webp=true

Occasionally though, the Bull Shark takes on more than it can handle and is eaten itself. This Saltwater Crocodile is called Brutus. He is 80 years old and weighs roughly 1 tonne. More than a match for many bull sharks.

When compared with a Great White Shark, a Bull Shark is small, but when comparing bite forces, that of a Bull Shark is far superior, mostly because of the diet a bull shark has, where turtles are a common meal.

The Science of Firearms

Guns are a hot topic in USA and many other places, their destructive abilities and availability means that murders are frequent in the many places.
But, many who own guns don't even know how guns work, let alone the rest of us gun free people across the world
The basic principle behind a firearm, at least a modern one, is that a bullet or projectile is loaded into a chamber, the bulled consists of a casing a projectile and gunpowder or cordite and the casing is at the base. It is filled with gunpowder and then the projectile is loaded into the casing sitting on the gunpowder. Then, when the trigger is pulled the hammer pulls back and slams forward creating a spark, that hits the primer ,which is a small explosive, that ignites the gunpowder pushing the projectile forward at incredible speeds. the casing is then ejected, this can happen by many methods and most of these mechanisms are unique to a specific weapon manufacturers. following the ejection of the casing a spring in the magazine pushes up the next bullet ready to have the process repeated. but that is only a semi automatic weapon the most common modern firearm, There are many types of guns including; manual action firearms; that can only be fired once per equipped barrel before it must be reloaded or charged via an external mechanism or series of steps. A semi-automatic, or self-loading, firearm is one that performs all steps necessary to prepare the it to discharge again after firing—assuming cartridges remain in the weapon's feed device or magazine. An automatic firearm is one that continues to load and fire cartridges from its magazine as long as the trigger is depressed (or until the magazine is depleted).

24th Guessing Article

Congratulations to lord alphabet for guessing the previous element- Einsteinium.

1. I am a person
2. I was born in America in 1970
3. I moved to Australia where I work at a university
4. I played a major role in discovering that Komodo Dragons use venom rather than bacteria

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, or more simply Leonardo da Vinci, was an Italian “polymath” meaning his expertise spanned a significant number of different subject areas including; Invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of paleontology (Basically the study of fossils) ichnology (the examination of footprints as fossils), and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. He is often credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, his genius epitomised the Renaissance.Born on the fifteenth of April 1452 in the Tuscan town of Vinci, little is known about Leonardo's early life. He spent his first five years in the home of his mother, then from 1457 he lived in the household of his father, grandparents and uncle. In 1466, at fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to the artist Verrocchio, and gained much of his artistic talent there.From 1476 to 1507 Leonardo put to use his existing talents and gained a many more, he studied at an art academy where he also learned of engineer and took classes pertaining to it. He wrote letters and gave gifts to a duke of Millan securing peace between Italy and Milan for the duration of the renaissangce. He designed a dome for a cathedral showing of his engendering talent and was commissioned to paint many of his most famous paintings, cementing his place in higher societyFollowing a French invasion of Italy, Leonardo and some of his closest friends fled to Venice where his renown as an engineer was put to use on a military council where he came up with some of his most radical ideas including the aforementioned tank. In 1500 he returned to Italy where he served the war mongering SON of the corrupt POPE Cesare Borgia (underlined because, POPES AREN’T SUPPOSED TO HAVE SONS [or a common whore for a wife]) as a military engineer and advisor, he retired from this position 3 years later. Following this he left the public eye and split up his recently deceased father’s estate among his brothers.From 1510 to 1516, Leonardo spent much of his time living in the Belvedere in the Vatican in Rome, under the newly elected Pope Leo X. In October 1514, King Francis I of France recaptured Milan. Leonardo was commissioned to make for Francis a mechanical lion which could walk forward, then open its chest to reveal a cluster of lilies. He spent the last years of his life, accompanied by his friends and apprentices, and supported by a pension totalling 10,000 scudi (a small fortune).Overall Leonardo pioneered many inventions and was an engineering and artistic figurehead for his time and will not soon be forgotten, whether from his paintings ideas or professions he pioneered. 

Halloween Decorations

Quick note to every one i'm slowly adding halloween decorations to the website so it might be a bit glitchy/ messy

23rd Guessing Article

Congratulations to Jblob, for correctly guessing the previous Animal- The Black Mamba

1. I am an element
2. I am heavier than Bromine
3. I am lighter than Seaborgium
4. I am a metal
5. I am a Lanthanoid or Actinoid

Sharks of the World and History- Great White Shark

Thanks for 3,000 page views.

The Great White Shark (Carcharodon Carcharius) is undoubtedly one of the most well known sharks. In our minds, it is the single most deadly killer there is in the ocean. Swimming in deep water is an open invitation to be eaten...

Not really. There are several more dangerous animals present in our oceans such as the box jellyfish or irukandji. Part of the fear of sharks comes from a feeling that we are not in control the moment we enter the water, stemming from the fact that we evolved to live on land, and land is where we are most at home. Film makers have tapped into this fear with movies like Jaws, Sharknado and The Reef along with the recent (Great White) Shark attack on Mick Fanning. But while the film makers are making lots of money, they are presenting an unreal interpretation of sharks.

http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/great-white-shark

National Geographic states that of 100 worldwide attacks, 1/3 to 1/2 are attributed to Great White Sharks. Most of these attacks are "curiosity" bites. This is because sharks have an spectacular amount of nerves in their teeth. Lacking hands, they need another way to identify if an item is prey or food. This normally entails either head-butting or as mentioned above curiosity biting.

As seen above, the top of the body is a dark grey, while the bottom is a white colour. This is effective camouflage in the ocean, where prey looking down will be unlikely to see it, as it blends into the darker water below them. Any prey looking up underneath the shark will see a white colour, just what they would expect to see, camouflaging it with the light above.

Great Whites feed on many different prey items. They are known to attack:

• Squid
• Whales (Mostly as carrion)
• Seals
• Sea lions
• And more.

They live in temperate waters all over the world, and are particularly tolerant to colder waters due to the fact that they produce heat with a muscle that runs from behind the head to partway along their body, meaning that they are a few degrees warmer than the surrounding water. But this does mean that they require more energy than most sharks.

http://www.animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/great-white-shark/

Great White Sharks are incredibly intelligent and uses problem solving to find the most effective ways of hunting. Great White Sharks in South Africa have started to jump out of the water underneath sea lions, effectively stunning the more mobile prey. 

http://www.grindtv.com/wildlife/seals-balancing-act-enables-it-to-escape-great-white-sharks-jaws/#cUmsAJYsYaAwijx1.97

This seal appears to be balancing on the Great White's jaws. But, it is likely that the Great White got the unfortunate seal in the end.

The Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and most powerful particle collider. It’s the largest, arguably most complex facility ever built. Along with being the largest single machine in the world. The LHC has and will continue to challenge our (as a species) current idea of physics. The large hadron collider sits in The European Organization for Nuclear Research’s (CERN) accelerator complex. The LHC consists of a 27-kilometer ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way.  It first started up on the 10 September 2008, and after a closure and refit in 2013 it opened again in 2015 after being extensively upgraded, including a beam power enhancement of ~six times its original power.

Back in 2011 two teams at the Large Hadron Collider looking for the Higgs Boson announced that they had finally seen results which could suggest the Higgs Boson particle existed, The Higgs Boson is a particle that gives mass to other particles which, if real would lead to much more interesting discoveries including the source of the creation of the universe. Around Christmas that year the same teams, announced that they had finally seen results which could suggest the Higgs Boson particle existed; however, they did not know for certain if this was true. But on 4 July 2012, the teams at the Large Hadron Collider declared that they had discovered a particle to which most signs point to being the Higgs Boson. March the following year the teams had done much more testing, and announced that they were within acceptable error margin and that the new particle was a Higgs Boson.

This discovery is undoubtedly one of the most scientifically significant events in the history of the Earth.

Many people believe (or believed) that the Large Hadron Collider could set off a chain reaction that could lead to Earth's destruction. For more information check out the following link:

http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

22nd Guessing Article

Congratulations to Thomas GeoGuy, for correctly guessing the previous place- Lake Baikal in the Russian Federation.

1. I am an animal
2. I live in a dry climate

Sharks of the World and History

On Saturday I will be posting the first of a series of new articles titled- Sharks of the World and History. They will explore sharks, both past and present along with other shark like creatures. I will (attempt to) continue to post these articles every Saturday. Stay tuned!

As a side note we are nearing 3000 pageviews. Thank you for the support.

21st Guessing Article

Congratulations to Ryan Passout for guessing the previous person- Brian Schmidt.

1. I am a place
2. I am in the Northern Hemisphere

Poisonous vs Venomous

Many people get confused by the difference between poison and venom.

Poison is dangerous if you ingest it or get it inside the digestive system. Venom on the other hand is dangerous if you get it in your bloodstream or lymphatic system. That is why people can bath in venom or drink venom- they will be completely fine if they don't have any open sores in their mouth, skin or stomach.

20th Guessing Article

Congratulations to 78TyranidMaster87, for guessing the previous element- nickel.

1. I am a person
2. I have received a Nobel Prize
3. I spent my early life in America
4. I later moved to Australia
5. I received a Nobel Prize in Physics

Megalania

http://australianmuseum.net.au/megalania-prisca

The Megalania or Varanus Priscus was a truly horrifying creature. It grew to be roughly six metres long and had razor sharp recurved teeth. It lived in Australia at the time of the Megafauna and was a predator for many of the animals at the time. It was most likely an ambush predator and is related closely to the Komodo Dragon. Like the Komodo Dragon it has a venom, making it not only the largest venomous lizard, but the largest venomous creature known. This venom like that of the Komodo Dragon leads to an inability of blood clotting and shock in the creature. This means that the Megalania could have more safely killed its prey by biting and letting the prey weaken until unable to defend itself. It is at this point that Megalania came in and devoured its prey. No prey will have been too ferocious for this predator short of Pallimnarchus or Quinkana, and it is still likely it may have taken on those monstrosities.

19th Guessing Article

Congratulations to Ryan Passout for guessing the previous animal- Myllokunmingia.

1. I am an element
2. I am heavier than Aluminium

Nuclear Fission and Fusion

Nuclear Fission and Fusion are both forms of nuclear energy but vary on the production of such energy.

Nuclear Fission

Nuclear Fission uses either Plutonium or Uranium for fuel. Fission starts when a fast moving neutron strikes a nucleus. The whole nucleus breaks apart into two smaller nuclei. In the process of splitting several neutrons split off from the nuclei and continue the reaction. A Nuclear Reactor requires a controlled reaction. An uncontrolled reaction will lead to incredible heat being generated, and this is how a Nuclear Bomb is created. 

Nuclear Fusion

Nuclear Fusion uses Hydrogen as fuel and occurs when atoms fuse together. To start a fusion reaction, pairs of nuclei must meet so that they fuse together. When they fuse a neutron will be left over. The fused nucleus will move off at high speed producing astronomical amounts of heat. There is no radiation, but the neutrons are harmful. To make the nuclei fuse the temperature of the atoms must reach millions of degrees. 

18th Guessing Article

Congratulations to Thomas-GeoGuy for guessing the previous place- the Aral Sea near Muynak.

1. I was an animal
2. I was a species of fish
3. I had an advantage over other life when I lived
4. I was an evolutionary milestone
5. I have my own article on this blog
6. I am the first vertabrate