Russian Roller Coaster
The inspiration for the modern roller coaster comes from 17 century Russian ice slides.
The slides were tall wooden structures with water frozen over a long, sloping ramp.
It would often rise up over 24 meters, while the ramps would stretch over hundreds.
The sleds were a block of ice with straw mats.
People were sent racing down the slippery slopes and tremendous speeds.
Mutant Sea Slug
2013 the world's first two headed sea slug was found when diver master Nash Baiti while he was in Borneo.
It had both female and male organs.
It was bright neon orange and green and toxic.
The slug is around an inch long.
They eat tiny creatures that have bag-like bodies, called sea squirts.
They remove the sea squirts chemical compounds, which are then stored inside the slugs, and then the chemicals are exuded as a slimy mucus.
That's a lot of Rings!
Saturn's rings span 290,000 kilometers, however the rings are only 9.7 meters thick in some places and 966 in others.
They are the most extensive ring system of any planet in the Solar System.
They consist of countless small particles, that orbit around Saturn.
The ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice, with a trace component of rocky material.
It's not the only planet with rings, but Saturn's rings are the biggest and brightest.
An astronomer named Galileo was the first person to see Saturn's rings.
Cat Escapes Prison
In Rio De Janeiro on new years eve in 2013, a cat was found wandering around the gate of a medium security prison.
Attached to the cat's body were saws, two concrete drill bits, a head set, a memory card, a cell phone, three batteries and a mobile phone charger.
The cat was taken to an animal disease center to receive medical care.
Ancient Hedgehogs Threatened
The hedgehog name came from its peculiar foraging methods.
It digs through hedges and undergrowth searching for small creatures, insects, worms, rats, ect.
They make a pig like sound.
There are 15 species of hedgehog; they are found in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but they have also been introduced into new areas such as New Zealand.
The earliest known member of the family that includes hedgehogs lived about 58 million years ago.
The smallest hedgehog ever, Silvacola acares, lived 52 million years ago in a rain forest in northern British Columbia.
It was about 2 inches long.
Today’s hedgehogs measure roughly from 5 to 14 inches (plus a 1- to 2-inch tail), depending on the species.
Its spines are 1-inch long modified hairs that cover the critters’ back and sides.
The face, chest, belly, throat and legs are covered in fur.
There are somewhere between 5,000 to 7,000 spines on an average adult hedgehog.
They are neither poisonous nor barbed.
Unlike the quills of a porcupine, the hedgehog's prickers stay firmly attached to the animal.
They use their quills defensively, more like armor than projectiles.
When threatened, hedgehogs roll up into a ball, thereby becoming an orb of hard-to-eat spines.
This is how they sleep.
They are nocturnal.
Hedgehogs can live for four to seven years in the wild.
Smaller species live two to four years (though longer in captivity).
Hedgehogs have some natural immunity against snake venom.
Hedgehogs take part in an odd behavior called “anointing” when they first come upon a new object or bit of food.
They will lick the substance until a frothy saliva forms, and then they rub said spit onto their skin and spines.
No one is quite sure why they do this.
Hedge hogs are loners.
Moms kick the babes out of the nest sometime between four and seven weeks.
A medical condition that only hedgehogs get, is balloon syndrome.
It's a serious condition involves air or gas trapped under the skin and the hedgehog grows in size.
Hedgehogs can give humans a fungal skin infection, also known as ringworm, also major microbial infections associated with hedgehogs include bacteria such as Salmonella and Mycobacteria.
A carved toy hedgehog was found buried next to a child’s grave unearthed near Stonehenge dating back some 3,000 years.
Some people eat hedgehogs....
These mammals are being threatened in Britain.
In the 1950s, Britain had 30 million hedgehogs running around.
Now there is under a million.
Farming methods have led to a loss of habitat and a change in hedgehogs' diets.
Also it's estimated that more than 100,000 hedgehogs are killed by vehicles on Britain's roads every year.
Volcano House
The Volcano house hotel on the rim of Kilauea crater in Hawaii, opened in 1846.
It had a stone hearth with a fire that burned for over 133 years.
The fire finally was put out in 2010 on New Year's day.
As of May 10, 2018, the hotel and the Kīlauea summit area of the national park have been closed to the public due to volcanic explosions and earthquakes.
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