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10 Real-Life Costs of Action Movies

Today I feel like tackling a new type of topics which is “Movies”. Action movies are known for their over-the-top destruction, high-tech g...

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Oscar Statuettes: 10 Facts You May Not Know

Since the event is in a few hours I thought you would like this topic. Enjoy..
2015 Oscars host Neil Patrick Harris (l.) and past emcee Bob Hope (r.) feature among fun facts about the Academy Awards.GETTY IMAGES

2015 OSCARS HOST NEIL PATRICK HARRIS (L.) AND PAST EMCEE BOB HOPE (R.) FEATURE AMONG FUN FACTS ABOUT THE ACADEMY AWARDS.

Lights, camera, Oscar!
Before you tune in to see host extraordinaire Neil Patrick Harris emcee the Academy Awards for the first time on Sunday, get the lowdown on some surprising facts about Hollywood’s biggest night of the year.

1. IT COST PEANUTS TO ATTEND THE FIRST ACADEMY AWARDS

The Oscars are Hollywood’s glitziest and most exclusive star-studded event, but the very first ceremony in 1929 was a private affair held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel – and a ticket cost just $5.
(Sorry Oscar buffs: The awards show is still a private event, and tickets are not available for sale to the public.)

2. THE ACADEMY AWARD TROPHY HAS AN OFFICIAL NAME – AND A MYSTERIOUS NICKNAME

Everyone knows the statuette as “Oscar,” but it actually has an official name: Academy Award of Merit.
So how did it get to be called Oscar? According to the Academy, the origin story can’t be confirmed, but it’s widely believed that the trophy received its nickname from Academy librarian Margaret Herrick, who said that the little gold man looked like her Uncle Oscar.
The Daily News also has a connection to naming the famous statuette: The News’ Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky was the first person to refer to the award as an Oscar while covering the 1934 ceremony, writing that Katharine Hepburn was not present to “receive her Oscar.” In his 1975 memoir “Don’t Get Me Wrong, I Love Hollywood,” the columnist claimed he was the one to give the statuette its’ nickname, which he said he based on the vaudeville joke line, “Will you have a cigar, Oscar?”
Actress Reese Witherspoon attends the 87th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on February 22, 2015 in Hollywood, California.
Rosamund Pike attends the 87th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on February 22, 2015 in Hollywood, California.
Actress Julianne Moore attends the 87th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on February 22, 2015 in Hollywood, California.
Jennifer Lopez arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

3. THE ACADEMY LIKES TO HAND OUT FAKE OSCARS BEFORE THE SHOW

Prior to the Oscars, rehearsals are held where celebs show up to practice their lines, announce the winner and present an award.
Five sets of dummy envelopes with each nominee’s name is prepared to be used during the rehearsals. And since there are dummy envelopes, there are also dummy Oscars made of plaster to hand out to the “winners.” (For those curious to take a peek, producer Neil Meron tweeted a photoof the fake awards from this year’s rehearsals.)

4. THE OSCARS RED CARPET SHOWCASES THE EVENT’S HISTORY

For the past 14 years, the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles has hosted the Academy Awards, which seats 3,400 people. All of them will walk the show’s red carpet to reach the venue, which stretches a whopping500 feet (beating out the Golden Globes’ red carpet, which extends to around 437 feet).
To spotlight the event’s long-running history, the red carpet is flanked by two pillars that bear the name of every Best Picture winner since the show’s inception. Incredibly, there’s enough room for the Academy to keep adding winners through 2071.
Anne Hathaway appears on stage at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards in 2011.GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

ANNE HATHAWAY APPEARS ON STAGE AT THE 83RD ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS IN 2011.

5. WANT TO BE A SEAT FILLER? TOO BAD!

The only way for a regular Joe to score a seat to the Oscars is to work as a seat filler. But even then, he or she can’t be that “regular”: According to a seat-filler who worked at the 2003 show, the only way to score the (unpaid) gig is to know someone who works at the Academy or to be an employee of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm entrusted with tallying the votes.

6. BOB HOPE IS THE OSCAR EMCEE FOR THE AGES

Legendary entertainer Bob Hope holds the record for hosting the most Academy Awards, having emceed 19 ceremonies between 1940 and 1978. Hope began hosting prior to when the show was televised, and closed out his run on Oscar’s 50th anniversary.
Celebs walk the red carpet at the Oscars, held at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.  KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/GETTY IMAGES

CELEBS WALK THE RED CARPET AT THE OSCARS, HELD AT THE DOLBY THEATER IN LOS ANGELES.

On the opposite spectrum, this year’s host Neil Patrick Harris hopes to avoid the One and Done Club, the celebs who haven’t been asked back to host after their first time. Stars who have membership in this dubious club include Chris Rock, Seth MacFarlane, Anne Hathaway, James Franco and “Crocodile Dundee” star Paul Hogan.

7. OSCAR WINNERS USED TO BE ANNOUNCED IN ADVANCE OF THE CEREMONY

In the early days, the Academy kept a lid on the results, making an exception for newspapers so that that they could publish the list of winners at 11 p.m. on the night of the event.
Then The Los Angeles Times published the results in advance of the 1940 awards show, spoiling the winners before the ceremony got underway. The Academy responded the following year by sealing the results in envelopes, with their content kept secret until they are opened on stage.

8. THERE’S A CONTINGENCY PLAN IF THE WRONG WINNER IS ANNOUNCED ON STAGE

Remember those folks from PricewaterhouseCoopers? As part of being the only people on the planet who know the results prior to the show, the firm’s partners memorize the winners in all 24 categories. So if the wrong person is announced as the winner, they are authorized to go out onstage and stop the show. (Luckily, this has not yet happened at the awards show to date.)
Halle Berry becomes first african american woman to win best actress during oscars.
Sacheen Littlefeather accepts the award for Marlon Brando during the oscars.
David Niven on stage when a streaker runs behind him during oscars.
Martin Scorsese wins an Oscar for best director for the departed.

9. THE OSCAR WEIGHS MORE THAN YOU THINK

When someone wins an Academy Award for the first time, the winner usually comments on heavy the statuette feels. There’s a reason for this: It stands at 13.5 inches and weighs 8.5 pounds. To give some perspective, clutching an Oscar feels like holding a gallon of milk.
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MERYL STREEP (L.) AND DANIEL DAY LEWIS EXIT THE STAGE AT THE 2013 OSCARS.

10. THE ACADEMY AWARDS WAS ROBBED – LITERALLY

When a front-runner loses the Academy Award, there are often cries that he or she was “robbed.” But the Academy was actually robbed in 2000, when two men stole packing crates filled with 55 Oscar statuettes. All but three of the trophies were recovered after the crates were found in the trash. (The third one was eventually discovered by FBI agents during a drug investigation three years later.)

Saturday, February 27, 2016

Coca-Cola; 25 Uses You Didn’t Know About

Coca-cola is the biggest brand in the history of brands and products and surveys have suggested that it is the most popular world after ‘hello’—now imagine that! If it is the second most popular word in the world then almost everyone in the world must have coca-cola on them almost at all times—this is a scary reality because it is a proven fact now that Coca-cola is absolutely bad for your body. The chemical cocktail that you drink for refreshment is practically killing your metabolism since its acidity level matches the acidity levels of the battery acid.
This stomach lining killing poison is associated with diseases like, cardiac arrest, stroke, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, etc. and is especially bad for young children as it interferes with the balanced diet, rather than complementing it.
It is said that people who consume this fizzy poison inculcate dependence on caffeine and deficiency of important minerals like calcium, magnesium, and vitamin A. Don’t take us wrong, we still believe that Coca-cola is a very useful drink—although not for the body but there are many other fantastic uses for it that after knowing them you might start purchasing it all the more than before!

25 PRACTICAL USES FOR COCA-COLA

Bog Groomer: Cleaning the toilet is the most tedious of the tasks and let’s be honest, no one really wants to do it—no one but your friendly fizzy partner Coca-cola. All you have to do is pour the drink in the commode and wait for an hour before you scrub with a brush and flush—now you have got yourself a sparkling toilet!
source: http://lifecheating.com/2013/12/10/how-to-clean-your-toilet-with-coca-cola/
Stubborn Stains: Thing of the Past!: If you don’t want to buy really expensive stain removers, take some of that Coca-cola and pour it in the wash along with the detergent. The stains will be removed and your clothes will be deodorized! All thanks to the carbonic and phosphoric acid inside the carbonated drink.
source: http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2011/10/remove-tough-greasy-stains-from-clothing-with-coca-cola/
Window Cleaner: By now we know that Coca-cola has magic cleaning powers—one more thing that it can clean efficiently is window. Because of the presence of the citric acid in the drink, it makes a wonderful window cleaner and works the same way as citrus fruit based window cleaners work.
source: http://toptenfamous.com/top-10-famous-unusual-but-amazing-uses-for-coca-cola/
Bug Slayer: All kinds of bugs are big Coca-cola fans like us—they simply love the sweet fizzy wonder but without knowing that it can destroy them and they will be pushing up daises if they try to consume it. You can spray the drink on ant hills and cockroaches in your cupboards and get rid of them!
Color Fader: You can use the drink on your hair if you dyed your hair many shades darker than you wanted. Coca-cola is known for its quality of fading the color on hair; so the next time your hair gets dyed in a disastrous way, do not panic or run off to your expensive stylist but in fact open the refrigerator and grab that Coca-cola can and let it do the work!
Gum Remover: If a gum has been stuck to your hair and you think that the only way to get rid of it is to get an unwanted haircut then you do not have to worry anymore! Just pour some coke on the gum and let it sit for a few minutes, you will see that it becomes easier for you to pick that gum off your hair.
Source: http://will2salon.blogspot.in/2012_06_01_archive.html
Pain Neutralizer: If you have been bitten by a bug, strung by a bee or a jellyfish then you do not have to panic in pain, just pour some of the dark fizzy drink on the affected area and your pain will be neutralized in seconds, thanks to the chemicals in Coca-cola.
Dish Washer: If your pots are all blackened, pour some of the wonder fizz into them and let it sit for a few minutes. The chemicals in the drink will fight the grime and loosen it, then you can easily scrub it out and your pots will again be clean and shiny!
Rust Fighter: If you want to get rid of the gross rust then dip that object into a mug full of fresh coke or if the object is too big then soak a cloth in coke and try to rub the rust out. The phosphoric acid in the drink will cause the corrosion process and the rust will loosen and can be easily taken off from the affected object.
source: http://makezine.com/2011/03/21/rust-removal-using-soda/
Pesticide in the Fields: In India, some farmers use coca-cola instead of pesticides for pest termination, because it’s cheaper and the result is totally rewarding. It is said that the high sugar content of the drinks can make them efficient in fighting pests, which is of course denied by the company since they say that there is nothing in the drink that can be used as a pesticide. But the technique is an in-vogue trend in the Indian farming scenario.
Source: http://yush.com/coca-cola-great-as-pesticide-say-farmers.htm
Defroster: Coca-cola can defrost the ice that settles on your windshield in the winters. Just pour the drink and let it settle for a few minutes and the ice will eventually come off on its own.
Puts off Bugs: If you get too many bugs in your vicinity or your garden is full of them but it is hard to catch them then put few open cans of coke in your garden or near the window and let the bugs get attracted to the can. Once they sat on it then you can catch them easily.
Odor Killer: You no longer have to endure that skunk smell; if you have been sprayed by the animal then do not fret with deodorants, perfumes and body washes, just get into the shower and pour the drink on the affected area and you will get rid of the problem almost instantly.
Source: http://listverse.com/2010/07/03/top-10-unusual-uses-for-coca-cola/
Gardening Tool: It comes handy in the lawn as well; if you pour a can every week into your compost bin then it will strengthen the growth of the microorganisms that will later on help in making your lawn healthy and blooming.
Cola Fun: So what if you cannot drink it, you can still have some fun with it—take a liter bottle of Diet Coke and put some Mentos in it and you have got yourself a lovely cola fountain!
Source: http://mentalfloss.com/article/48759/why-do-diet-coke-and-mentos-react
Shiny Monies: If you are a coin collector you will love this tip—you can dip your pennies in a mug full of Coca-cola and leave them there for a bit. When you will take out your coins you will see that they are shiny and new again. Cola helps to get rid of the deposited muck!
source: http://pt.wikihow.com/Limpar-Moedinhas
The Hairstylist: You can make your hair curly by pouring some flat coke on them and then rinsing it off after letting it sit for a few minutes (make sure you do rinse it off, for you do not want your hair to look sticky!).
The Beautician: Mix a tablespoon of flat Coca-cola into your usual moisturizer and massage the cream on to your skin. Your skin will glow and become smoother.
Paint Remover: If your furniture has been stained with paint then grab a towel and soak it in coke and rub it out. Make sure you wash it off with soap water later so that the stickiness of the drink is removed.
Putrefied Battery Cleaner: The drink’s slight acidity as compared to a Basic, when poured on the battery does not dilute battery acid (H2SO4), which is quite acidic—which means that it can be used to clean-up corroded batteries. So if you are stuck in the desert and you have to clean the car battery but you have nothing on you but Coca-cola (although we wonder why you would still carry it after reading the article?) you can use it as a cleaner.
Source: http://funstuffcafe.com/coca-cola-the-best-way-to-clean-your-toilet
The Loosener: You can use coke to loosen those tight and rusted bolts. Pour some of it on the bolt and let it sit there for a while, after that remove it with water and you will notice that the bolt will be much looser than before.
Enemy of the Oil: It can remove any kind of oil stains from the floor or the kitchen slab. Use the same old method—pour it on the affected area, let it sit for sometime and later wipe if off with scrub and water.
Pool Cleaner: You can make your pool rust free and shiny in a matter of minutes by pouring two liters of coke into the pool and letting it sit for a while. When you will clear it up you will see a huge difference in the appearance of your pool.
Crime Cola: Coca-cola is famous for being used for removal of the blood stains from clothes, furniture, carpet, walls and floor. It is also said that it is used as an important cleaning agent while cleaning a crime scene, although it is not known for sure.
Vintage Cola: You can give your photographs or a sheet of paper old and antique look with Coca-cola. All you have to do is dip a picture or piece of paper in a dish full of coke and let it soak for a second. Take it out and leave it for drying and you will end up with a vintage looking photograph.
After knowing these wonderful things about Coca-cola we bet you must be regretting drinking all that coke and slow poisoning yourself, and also, throwing away all of the rest from the party last night! But now you know better, so the next time you have that big party and you have to serve it because aunt Jenna absolutely insists on it, then save yourself and your family from the atrocities of drinking it but still, collect all of the waste coke and pour it into one big container to clean off the rust or shine the pots or relieve that stomach ache!
Hopefully you got a broader perspective on Coca-cola and are aware of all the wonderful ‘parallel’ uses of it now, because you might shun it as a drink but still can take benefits from its diverse uses!

Friday, February 26, 2016

10 Most haunting deserted places.

One would think that in a world inhabited by more the 7 billion people there would be no abandoned places since we need to make use of each and every corner of this beautiful planet. Yet, these places do really exist. These real life ruins offer an eerie glimpse into a world without humans. Their dark walls inspire a sense of wonder like you’ve never felt before.

1. KOLMANSKOP, NAMIBIA

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Kolmanskop, a ghost town in Sperrgebiet of Namibia, was built during the burgeoning diamond trade in the early 1900s. In 1908, a railway worker named Zhacarias Lewala was shoveling sand away from the railroad tracks when he spotted a diamond. The news spread quickly, and many Germans poured into the area to hunt for the precious gems. A bustling town soon developed, complete with a hospital, ballroom, school, factory, and casino. However, by the end of the first World War, the town declined. Later, richer diamond deposits were found farther south and operations moved to Oranjemund. Kolmanskop became a ghost town. In 1980, the De Beers mining company restored many of its buildings and turned Kolmanskop into a tourist attraction.

2. WILLARD ASYLUM, NEW YORK

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Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane was built in 1869 and closed in 1995. Housing 4000 patients at its peak, more than half of the 50,000 patients who called Willard Asylum their home died within its walls. This makes the asylums morgue (pictured above) one of the creepiest places we can imagine. By its closure, most patients were eventually integrated back into society, but in the early days “people didn’t leave unless it was in a box.”

3. CHATEAU MIRANDA, BELGIUM

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The castle was originally built by French aristocrats fleeing the revolution. During and after World War II, Miranda Castle was used as an orphanage. It was abandoned in 1980, with the family refusing to allow authorities to care for the structure. Because of its past, this haunting castle remains a favorite amongst ghost hunters.

4. SIX FLAGS JAZZLAND, NEW ORLEANS.

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Severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Six Flags Jazzland has been abandoned since. Several of the rides still stand, a testimony to the resilience of New Orleans. Several companies have plans to develop the park, but until then it will remain as the perfect setting for a horror movie.

5. ABANDONED MILITARY HOSPITAL, GERMANY.


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Beelitz-sanatorium-abandoned-619a0hjwz5qq3djpg
This abandoned sanatorium in Beelitz, Germany has an eerie past. The German National Insurance Institute constructed the military hospital in 1898 to house tuberculosis patients. Later on, the sanatorium played host to a recuperating Adolf Hitler, who was injured in the 1916 Battle of the Somme during World War I. During the 1920s, the hospital quickly expanded to accommodate thousands of patients. The building was even equipped with a butcher’s shop, bakery, beer garden, and restaurant. As World War II enveloped the globe, Beelitz Sanatorium was once again a haven for the German military. After the war, the Soviets took control of Beelitz-Heilstätten and used it to treat Soviet soldiers stationed in the area. After the Soviets withdrew in 1994, the building was left empty and abandoned.

6. MICHIGAN CENTRAL STATION, DETROIT.

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In the early 1900s, Detroit was a bustling epicenter for factory jobs and industrialization. The city’s railroad business was quickly expanding, and the company decided that a much larger depot should be built. By 1910, Michigan Central had purchased 50 acres of property in the Corktown neighborhood outside of downtown Detroit. The station was comprised of a 3-story train depot and an 18-story office tower; the final price for the building was about $2.5 million (around $55 million today). Once built and in use, the station inspired awe in all of its passengers: “The grandeur of the interior is something that will be lasting, for it is of marble, brick and bronze, all of this is set off by one of the best lighting schemes ever installed in a building,” wrote the Free Press in 1913.
But a busy future for the station wasn’t meant to be. The railroad industry fell into decline as the government began constructing highways and subsidized intercity airline traffic. Over the years, railroad companies tried to sell the station, and train lines began to abandon the station because of the upkeep. On January 5, 1988, Train No. 353 became the last train to leave the station. During the 1990s, the station fell into disrepair and became vulnerable to trespassing and looting. Today, the battle between demolition and restoration continues.

7. PRIPYAT, UKRAINE.

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Pripyat, a city of nearly 50,000, was totally abandoned after the nearby Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. Due to radiation, it has been left untouched ever since the incident and will be for many thousands of years into the future. Nature now rules the city in what resembles an apocalyptic movie.

8. HASHIMA ISLAND, JAPAN.

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In the past Hashima Island was rich in coal, with over 5000 miners once living on the island. When petrol replaced coal as Japan’s main source of fuel, the settlement was left abandoned. Now the once thriving town is creepily abandoned, with only shadows remaining.

9. CHRIST OF THE ABYSS, ITALY.

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The Christ of the Abyss is a bronze statue placed in 1954 on the bottom of the bay of San Fruttuoso, between Camogli and Portofino inside Portofino’s Protected Natural Marine Area, 15 meters deep.
The statue was born from an idea by Duilio Marcante following the death of Dario Gonzatti, one of the pioneers of scuba diving, during a dive in 1950. Duilio pushed for the installation of a statue of Christ on the seabed; on 22 August 1954 the statue of the Christ of the Abyss was placed in the bay in front of San Fruttuoso, between Camogli and Portofino, near the Abbey of San Fruttuoso. The statue, about 2.50 meters high and built by sculptor Guido Galletti, was placed by the Italian Navy about 15 meters deep, with the help of many divers. The hands of Christ, addressed to the surface (or heaven) are in a sign of peace.

10. I.M. COOLING TOWER, BELGIUM.

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The I.M. Cooling Tower is part of an abandoned power plant located in Monceau, Belgium. While in use, the tower cooled incoming hot water by using wind. The wind would enter the opening at the bottom of the tower and rise up, cooling the hot water. The air would then become warm and leave the tower. During its prime, the I.M. Cooling Tower could cool up to 480,000 gallons of water per minute.

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Gravitational Waves: Everything You Need to Know


At 5:51 a.m. EDT (9:51 a.m. GMT) on September 14, 2015, history was made. At that exact moment, the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors in Louisiana and Washington state independently saw evidence for gravitational waves, originating from two merging black holes 1.3 billion light-years away. It was pretty big news. You might have heard about it.
The discovery is undoubtedly one of the biggest moments in astronomy, not only confirming Einstein’s theory of general relativity from 100 years ago, but also providing us with a new way to observe the universe. But you’ve no doubt still got many questions about gravitational waves. What are they, exactly? Why did the detection have to be made at that moment? How do we know it was two black holes merging?
Well, wonder no more. Below, we run through some of the outstanding questions you might have about the biggest discovery of the century.
What is a gravitational wave? 
A gravitational wave is essentially a ripple in the fabric of space-time caused by a massive object, or objects in this case, moving or merging. For this pair of black holes, their moment of becoming one caused them to lose mass equal to three times our Sun. This release of energy caused a ripple in space-time, a gravitational wave. Then 1.3 billion years later, this ripple arrived at Earth – and we detected it.
“The space-time continuum is often explained with the analogy of steel balls on a rubber sheet,” Justin Greenhalgh from Harwell Campus’ Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, a contributor to LIGO, told IFLScience. “To extend this, gravitational waves can be viewed as ripples in this rubber sheet.”
How did we get so much information from a single “blip”?
As the gravitational wave passed over Earth, it produced a noticeable signal at both LIGO detectors, which had only recently been upgraded as part of the Advanced LIGO project. It is the nature of the blip here that is key.
Essentially, scientists have an idea of what sort of events will produce different kinds of blips. Once the signal had been received, they simply needed to plug the various values – frequency and time, for instance – into equations, which told them that it must have been two merging black holes, one 36 times the mass of our Sun and one 29, about 1.3 billion years ago.
“The analysis of this signal is consistent with two black holes merging – different sources have different characteristics,” CERN physicist Jon Butterworth told The Guardian. “Apparently they have a ‘library’ of expected spectral characteristics from different sources.”
How big was the wave?
Prepare to have your mind mildly blown. When the black holes merged, the release of energy sent out a wave in all directions as a sphere expanding at the speed of light. This means that, by the time the wave reached us, it was the edge of a sphere that spanned 1.3 billion light-years in radius, extending from Earth to the same distance on the other side of the black holes. Yeah.
Do gravitational waves travel forever?
Like light, gravitational waves are thought to propagate seemingly forever, but they do also get weaker over time, albeit at a slower rate than light.
How fast do they move?
At the speed of light, based on the difference in time of blips between the two detectors – 7 milliseconds apart. This has the further consequence of telling us that the “graviton,” the hypothetical particle of gravity, must be massless, since particles with mass cannot reach the speed of light. However, this could be verified further with more measurements.
“The theory suggests that these waves travel at the speed of light, so if we were to identify an event that produces light and gravitational waves simultaneously, we could confirm this,” said Greenhalgh. “It is possible that a supernova would provide the right amount of light and gravitational waves to do so, but we are not yet able to confirm this.”
Each LIGO detector uses tunnels 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) long. LIGO Laboratory
Why was it important the detector was turned on at a specific time to find this signal? 
Everything in the universe is producing gravitational waves, but only the most massive events warp space-time to any noticeable degree. Thus, we must rely on massive events producing powerful waves for us to measure, and that’s what happened here.
The moment the two black holes merged produced a sudden, measurable burst of gravitational waves, with 50 times the power of all the stars in the universe combined. This wave traveled over 1.3 billion light-years to Earth and, thanks to LIGO being switched on, it was able to catch the incredibly brief moment this wave passed over our planet.
“Like a camera, or telescope, you have to have LIGO on at the right time to witness the wave,” Greenhalgh said. “While waves are always being produced, most are not of a scale that would allow them to be measured.”
Now that Advanced LIGO is up and running, there could be many more of these events for us to discover.
Is it possible an alien race in another galaxy could have used this same event to discover gravitational waves?
There’s no reason why not. “They do propagate evenly in all directions, so it is entirely possible that an alien race could discover gravitational waves from the same event,” said Greenhalgh. “Indeed, it is possible that one already has, or will in a hundred years time.”
What could we use gravitational waves for?
Like radio waves, gravitational waves are a form of information, and by detecting them we could get information from previously unobservable parts of the universe.
Take these two black holes, for instance. Both are less than 150 kilometers (93 miles) across, but located 1.3 billion light-years away. We have no other instruments in existence that could detect information from objects so small and far away. In visible light, for instance, we could barely see an entire galaxy at this distance.
Perhaps most interestingly, finding more of these merging black holes could allow us to see into the history of the universe – possibly closer to the Big Bang than ever before. “A cosmic distance ladder using these black holes would be extremely accurate and compliment existing distance ladders based, for example, on supernovas,” Stephen Hawking told the BBC. “We may even see relics of the very early universe during the Big Bang, at the most extreme energies possible.”
How will future missions improve on LIGO?
The key thing we’re missing at the moment is location. As we only had two detectors, we were only able to tell the direction of the signal – somewhere in the southern sky. A third detector will help us to triangulate where future signals are coming from – something that could be achieved with Italy’s upcoming VIRGO detector.

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Did you know? (Issue 2)

In this article I introduce to you the second issue of a long planned series of facts that you probably have not heard of before. Enjoy!
1. SWORDFISH.
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This is a baby swordfish. Swordfish typically grow about 14 inches per year, but a tiny baby like this might grow to 39 inches before its first birthday.
2. IT’S A GUITAR!!
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There is a guitar shaped forest in Argentina. The 7000 trees were planted by a farmer in 1979 as a tribute to his late wife. He has never been able to see it himself from above because he is terrified of flying. How ironic!
3. MUSHROOMS ARE NOT ONLY FOOD.
Mushrooms can be made into bricks that are strong enough for building structures. They are solid, lightweight, biodegradable, made with agricultural waste and producing them does note create any carbon emission.
4. THE HAND OF GOD.
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This unedited photo of a strange cloud over Madeira island in Portugal has been dubbed “The Hand of God“. Meteorologists say it is not an uncommon formation, but this one was enhanced by the light of the rising sun in addition to a really good timing.
5. JAPAN AT IT AGAIN!
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There is a Japanese town that looks like a Swedish town, sells Swedish folk crafts and celebrates Swedish traditions. Sweden Hills, located on Hokkaido island, hosts Swedish festivals throughout the year and is popular with tourists.
6. ARE YOU AFRAID OF SPIDERS?!!
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You can overcome your arachnophobia by cuddling spiders at the London Zoo. The friendly spider program is a 4-hour session designed to help those whose fear of spiders significantly impacts their life.
7. SUNSET CANDLES.
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A new type of candles called “Sunset Candles” that lived up to its name by evolving through five different colors and scents as it slowly melts away.

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