A mouse's eye view of the World!
Directions:
Left click and hold on each photo, and then drag your mouse gently from left to right on the original photograph and it will be become a photo of the exact same location and view in 2014.
Drag it back to the left and you are back in 1944!
Scroll down for more of the same. Just fascinating!
http://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2014/apr/image-opacity-slider-master/index.html?ww2-dday
It starts as a big tree stump and ends as a beautiful wood carving.
Snuggle with the cubs while tagging Mum…..
Simple to procure, easy to use and relatively cheap……
This video is well-worth reading and absorbing (pardon the pun – unintended!)
I have seen them growing, but didn’t know about the processing.
Ever wonder where cashews come from?
You might think they grow inside a shell like any other nut, but their true origins are far more bizarre.
First of all, cashews are not actually nuts, but rather fruits from the cashew tree, a large evergreen tree
that thrives in tropical climates.
The tree produces red flowers, which in turn produces yellow and red oval structures resembling apples.
These so-called cashew apples are very juicy and pulpy, and their juice is often added to tropical fruit drinks.
However, cashew apples are not actually fruits in a scientific sense;
the real fruit of the cashew tree is the kidney-shaped formation growing at the end.
These fruits, also called drupes, are harvested and become what we know as a cashew nut.
In their raw form the other layer of the fruit contains multiple toxins, including anacardic acid,
a powerful skin irritant similar to the toxin found in poison ivy, that must be removed prior to eating.
Roasting the cashews destroys the toxins, but roasting must be preformed carefully outdoors
because the smoke can irritate the lungs, sometimes to a life-threatening degree.
When they are roasted cashews change from their natural greenish-gray color to the light brown nut sold in stores.
Next time you crack open a tin of cashews, take a moment to appreciate the long journey those little
c-shaped nuts took from the tree to your table!
It also explains why they are so expensive!
That is why you can’t buy cashews in the shell, like other “nuts”.
Uploaded on Sep 1, 2009
Sir Nicholas Winton who organised the rescue and passage to Britain of about 669 mostly Jewish Czechoslovakian children destined for the Nazi death camps before World War II in an operation known as the Czech Kindertransport. This video is the BBC Programme “That’s Life” aired in 1988. The most touching video ever.
Over 50 million land mines remain unaccounted for in countries such as Angola, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Mozambique. People still regularly lose their limbs or even their lives to these hidden killers. Disarming even one mine is estimated to cost around $1,200, and considering that Angola alone has over 20 million of them, the total required to rid the country of this terrible plight could be over $24 billion.
Massoud Hassani, an Afghan designer and former refugee, has built his own low-cost detonation device. Weighing in at 70 kilograms (150 lb), it’s heavy enough to trigger a mine but light enough to be propelled by the wind alone. It looks like a dandelion and moves like a tumbleweed. Made out of bamboo and biodegradable plastic, this device can detonate three or four charges before it is completely destroyed. The cost of producing one Mine Kafon is just $40.
The Mine Kafon also has a built-in GPS tracking system that can detect the movements of each individual device and shows where a detonation has taken place. This helps people map out which areas are mine-free and which aren’t.
Nevertheless, the Mine Kafon is still in early stages of development and has drawbacks. It is possible for one such device to not trigger every mine it rolls over, especially if it has already detonated a few times. Another hiccup involves the terrain. No matter how hard the wind is blowing, chances are that it will not be able to push the Mine Kafon up a steep hill, out of a ditch, or through a heavily wooded area.
Hassani is aware of these issues and says that future generations of the device will be equipped with electric motors for increased mobility and metal detectors to map out every metal object, in case of a failed detonation. Even if this is not the perfect device, it’s a step in the right direction.
Ethiopia has the least access to clean drinking water among all African countries. Women and children from most villages have to travel many hours a day to collect water, which is oftentimes dirty and contaminated from being shared with livestock and other animals.
“Warka Water” is a solution designed by two Italian engineers and is based on a very simple principle. It traps water vapor from the air through condensation. Standing 9 meters (30 ft) tall, the framework is made out of bamboo and a special polyethylene fabric that collects water droplets. It weighs around 60 kilograms (130 lb) and can be put together by four people in a couple of hours without scaffolding. Each pillar can produce around 100 liters (26 gallons) of clean, fresh water a day from thin air with no effort at all.
The Ethiopian word warka refers to a wild fig tree native to the country. The warka tree symbolizes fertility and generosity and is commonly used for public gatherings and school classes.
The Warka Water project aims to be up and running in 2015 in some villages across the country. It stands as a simple, cheap, and elegant solution to solve a small part of a great problem.