Well eat and eat alot everyone! Enjoy!

I just got done reading that link you offered. Simply amazing. Thanks for sharing that. Wow if that chicken didn't have a rough life then I don't know what rough life is.

I mean just think the last thing it saw was a axe falling towards him.

Wow that blows my whole thread on amazing facts doesn't it. Thanks for the info. I am going to check this out. Boy I need a life don't I!

I thought that Flash was Fast, but he has nothing against the speed of a blackhole!

Oh come on! Chicken with no head. Are you serious?

That is good to know. I guess I just came up with that question just because they are so huge these black holes carrying billions of suns with them. Just unimaginable isn't it. At least for me it is.

Thanks for the lesson.

I mean it is told that the earth revolves around the sun at a speed of 66,600 miles per hour. I could be off a few hundred miles or more, but the point is that you don't really feel it at all!

I mean isn't that amazing by itself? Of course if I spin in circles in my room, I get dizzy and I sense that the earth is moving very fast or so it seems.

I mean 66,600 miles and you can't feel it! Wow this planet is big and it isn't even the biggest we know off.

It makes you wonder how fast a black hole travels?

Well that is certainly relieving. I won't feel a thing!

All I can say is that it is 48 pages later and everyone has debated the question to death!

In the end everyone has their own philosophy that rings true for them.

If we can find an ACTUAL evidence that the whole world can agree on would be quiet interesting indeed. Of course if that will ever happen sounds like an impossible feat, yet the word "impossible" is what drives most people of all studies to search for it. That we know has never changed.

Well anyway don't mind my blah blah blah, but take my chocolate covered strawberries that I just made as a token of peace and happiness.

And don't be greedy! Share them no matter what difference of opinion everyone has concerning "Evidence of a Designer".

It's okay I can enjoy these animal facts by myself also

Don't worry about the threads I make. You can say whatever you like. I never complain about anything. I am easy-going non-debater type guy as most know.

Actually I am also known to be off subject often. Usually because I don't understand what everybody is talking about on these science and philosophy threads

but I am okay with it.

I find a black hole scary to tell you the truth. I am glad that they are no where near our universe, but then again at the rate of speed they go you wonder if they can just appear quickly and suck us right up in seconds.

I figure we wouldn't feel anything right? It would be so quick if we got sucked up or whatever term everyone has here.

Blackholes are scary!

I wonder what the reason of their existence is in the first place.

Then I wonder if perhaps we are in a blackhole without knowing it?

Well don't mind me, I don't know the answers. Perhaps someone will give a theory or explanation that rings true.

Ahh now I am starting to understand this a bit. Thanks Quietman for taking the time to post these pictures. Very interesting

Have fun with this and correct anything that might not sound right.



Animal Quick Facts

1. Humpback whales create the loudest sound of any living creature.

2. A giant squid’s eyes have a diameter of 15 inches which are the largest of any animal.

3. 3 out of 10 Dalmation dogs suffer from hearing loss due to inbreeding.

4. The African Elephant has a gestation period of 22 months while a short-nosed bandicoot gestates for 12 days.

5. The mortality rate if bitten by a Black Mambo snake is over 95%.

6. A dog’s sense of smell is 1,000 times stronger than humans.

7. Hummingbird’s consume half of their weight in food daily.

8. A cockroach can survive for about a week without its head before dying of starvation.

9. The whale shark has over 4,000 teeth. Each tooth is only 3mm long.

10. Polar Bears are capable of jumping as high as 6 feet and can run as fast as 25mph.

11. The ‘crosshairs’ of gun sights were made of spider web filaments until the 1960’s.

12. Mosquitos are attracted most to the color blue.

13. The heart of a shrimp is located in its head.

14. Some frogs are able to be frozen and then thawed, and continue living.

15. A goldfish is the only animal that can see infrared and ultraviolet light.

16. A snail can sleep for 3 years.

17. There are 701 types of pure breed dogs.

18. The fastest bird, the spine-tailed swift, can fly as fast as 106mph.

19. A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.

20. A newborn kangaroo is about 1 inch in length.

21. In 1872, a virus epidemic killed a quarter of all the horses in the United States.

22. A woodpecker can peck 20 times per second.

23. An electric eel can produce a shock of up to 650 volts.

24. Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.

25. Cojo, the 1st gorilla born in captivity, was born at the Columbus, Oho Zoo in 1956 and weighed 3 1/4 pounds.

26. Dragonflies are one of the fastest insects, flying 50 to 60 mph.

27. Every year, $1.5 billion is spent on pet food. This is four times the amount spent on baby food.

28. It takes a lobster about seven years to grow to be one pound.

29. Large kangaroos can cover over 30 feet with each jump.

30. Of all known forms of animals life ever to inhabit the Earth, only about 10 percent still exist today.

31. On average, pigs live for about 15 years.

32. Sharks apparently are the only animals that never get sick. They are immune to every type of disease including cancer.

33. A chameleon’s tongue is twice the length of its body.

34. Male seahorses produce offspring.

35. Giraffes have no vocal cords.

36. Elephants have been known to remain standing after they die.

37. An albatross can sleep while flying.

38. A mosquito has 47 teeth.

39. Research indicates that mosquitoes are attracted to people who have recently eaten bananas.

40. The sex organ on a male spider is located at the end of one of its legs.

41. Armadillos, opossums, and sloth’s spend about 80% of their lives sleeping.

42. The ears of a cricket are located on the front legs, just below the knee.

The most massive known black hole in the universe has been discovered, weighing in with the mass of 18 billion Suns. Observing the orbit of a smaller black hole around this monster has allowed astronomers to test Einstein’s theory of general relativity with stronger gravitational fields than ever before.

The black hole is about six times as massive as the previous record holder and in fact weighs as much as a small galaxy. It lurks 3.5 billion light years away, and forms the heart of a quasar called OJ287. A quasar is an extremely bright object in which matter spiralling into a giant black hole emits copious amounts of radiation.



But rather than hosting just a single colossal black hole, the quasar appears to harbour two – a setup that has allowed astronomers to accurately ‘weigh’ the larger one.

The smaller black hole, which weighs about 100 million Suns, orbits the larger one on an oval-shaped path every 12 years. It comes close enough to punch through the disc of matter surrounding the larger black hole twice each orbit, causing a pair of outbursts that make OJ287 suddenly brighten.

General relativity predicts that the smaller hole’s orbit itself should rotate, or precess, over time, so that the point at which it comes nearest its neighbour moves around in space – an effect seen in Mercury’s orbit around the Sun, albeit on a smaller scale.


BRIGHT OUTBURSTS

In the case of OJ287, the tremendous gravitational field of the larger black hole causes the smaller black hole’s orbit to precess at an incredible 39° each orbit. The precession changes where and when the smaller hole crashes through the disc surrounding its larger sibling.

About a dozen of the resulting bright outbursts have been observed to date, and astronomers led by Mauri Valtonen of Tuorla Observatory in Finland have analysed them to measure the precession rate of the smaller hole’s orbit. That, along with the period of the orbit, suggests the larger black hole weighs a record 18 billion Suns.
A couple of other black holes have been estimated to be as massive, but their masses are less certain, says Valtonen. That’s because the estimates were based on the speed of gas clouds around the black holes, and it is not clear whether the clouds are simply passing by the black holes or actually orbiting them.

But Tod Strohmayer of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, US, says he is not convinced that Valtonen’s team has really measured the mass of the large black hole in OJ287 accurately.
That’s because only a handful of the outbursts have been measured with high precision, making it difficult to determine if the precession scenario is responsible for the outbursts. “Obviously, if subsequent timings continue to agree with the model, then that would provide further support,” he told New Scientist.



NO LIMIT

Just how big can black holes get? Craig Wheeler of the University of Texas in Austin, US, says it depends only on how long a black hole has been around and how fast it has swallowed matter in order to grow. “There is no theoretical upper limit,” he says.

The new research also tested another prediction of general relativity – that the black holes should spiral towards each other as they radiate energy away in the form of gravitational waves, or ripples in space. This radiation affects the timing of the disc crossings and their accompanying outbursts.

The most recent outburst occurred on 13 September 2007, as predicted by general relativity. “If there was no orbital decay, the outburst would have been 20 days later than when it actually happened,” Valtonen told New Scientist, adding that the black holes are on track to merge within 10,000 years.

Wheeler says the observations of the outbursts fit closely with the expectations from general relativity. “The fact that you can fit Einstein’s theory [so well] … is telling you that that’s working,” he says.

The world's largest tree, a giant sequoia growing in California's Sequoia National Park. The General Sherman tree measures 275 feet tall and 30 feet across at the base. Early estimates placed the tree's age at 5,000 to 6,000 years, and later at 2,500 to 3,500 years, as techniques for estimating sequoia ages have become more accurate. The tree is now thought to be even younger, perhaps only 2,100 to 2,200 years old."The Sherman tree's extreme bulk, more than ten times larger than a blue whale, has long led people to believe that its age was also extreme. The relative youth of the world's largest tree comes as something of a surprise."

Extremely large trees are not necessarily the oldest.Tree rings in cut sequoia stumps show that sequoias much smaller than the Sherman tree have reached ages of more than 3,200 years. "The Sherman tree isn't so large because it's exceptionally old, but because it's growing so fast," said Stephenson. "Each year it adds enough wood to make a tree one foot in diameter and more than 100 feet tall."








Of the many scenic wonders found within the Inyo National Forest, one of the most amazing is the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, located between 10,000 and 11,000 ft. in the White Mountains, east of the Sierra Nevada. These trees are the oldest known living trees on earth. Here in the White Mountains, the ancient trees have survived more than 40 centuries, exceeding the age of the oldest Giant Sequoia by 1,500 years. For trees that old, one would expect giants, but Bristlecone pines look more like weathered dwarfs than like old giants. They add no more than an inch per century to their girth. The harsh climate above 10,000 ft elevation and very poor soil conditions don’t let things grow too big. As a matter of fact, Bristlecone pines are the only trees to have adapted to these conditions. That gives them a competitive edge allowing for a long and undisturbed life.

The Ancient Forest. Each Bristlecone pine, from young seedling to ancient relic, has an individual character. And in the Ancient Forest, where trees had more that four and a half millennia to develop their character, each tree is a true individual. Every single tree in the Ancient Forest is at least 4,000 years old, many reach 4,500 years and the oldest one – Methuselah – has a confirmed age of 4,767 years which secured its place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Check this out and let me know how many you find. Oh and this one is a little weird in that some of the wolves are immediately visible whilst others are actually quite tricky to pick out. My last count I made it 16, there could be more.

Halley’s Comet appears every 75 to 76 years. It has had a recorded appearance since at least 240 BC. The last time Halley’s Comet crossed our planet’s sky was in 1986. Sometimes referred to as Comet Halley, it was formed 4.5 billion years ago.
Halley’s Comet was named after Edmund Halley who predicted the next time it would be seen. After his prediction came true, the comet was named after him. Halley’s Comet is about 6 miles across in length and is composed of rock, dust, and ice. The next time that Haley’s Comet will be visible to us is in the year 2061.

The nearest known black hole is 1,600 light years (10 quadrillion miles/16 quadrillion kilometers) away.

There are 9 planets within our solar system and all of them are rotating around the sun thanks to its natural gravitational pull. Thats a pretty unique setup and until the mid 90s the idea of other solar systems in distant galaxies was mere speculation.

That speculation became a reality in 1995 when the first extra-solar planet called 51 Pegasi b was discovered. What exactly is an extra-solar planet then ? Well simply put it’s a planet that not only exists outside of our solar system but also has its own central star which it rotates around. These planets are known as exoplanets or extra-solar planets.

Most exoplanets are discovered by chance but certain signs such as the regular dimming of a star can indicate whether an exoplanet might exist. When a planet moves in a regular transit around a central star its mass causes the dimming of the central star. This dimming is a key sign and indicator of possible exoplanet existance.

Since 1995 more than 200 extra-solar planets have been found and all of these are as big if not bigger than Jupiter. As technology improves perhaps smaller exo-planets can also be found but for now the mere existance of these exoplanets is an amazing discovery and really brings the subject of extra terrestrial life to the forefront of scientific discussion.

The International Space Station (ISS)

The International Space Station (ISS) is a result of the collaboration between six countries (United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, Italy, and Brazil) and the European Space Agency.

Not only has it been inhabited by astronauts continuously since the first crew entered the station on November 2nd 2000 but amazingly it only needs three astronauts on board at any point in time, thats pretty efficient for a high tech space station don’t you think ?
Overall it has four modules, the Zvezda Module which is where the crew sleep, exercise, and eat. The Zarya Module which houses the controls for navigation, communication, propulsion, and electric power.

The Unity Module which is called the “Node,” as it forms a connecting passageway allowing astronauts to depressurize when they leave the station. Finally the Destiny Module which is the laboratory where sophisticated instruments are found and used for experiments.