Curious Ninja

Most of us will have felt the pain of a bee sting. Luckily most of us will have avoided the dreaded pain of a tarantula hawk or a fire ant. Justin Schmidt felt all three of these - and 147 other horrible, burning sensations - after a dedicated life-long career devoted to insects. On numerous fieldwork trips, The University of Arizona entomologist would find himself digging up living colonies of creatures, who in turn were not happy with this destructive human scooping them into bags - and promptly sank their fangs, stingers or pincers into him. Still, no pain, no gain, and Schmidt turned his experiences into the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, ranking 78 species in a list which, while subjective, was put together by the man who must surely know best, ranking their pain on a scale of 1 to 4. 10 Sweat Bee SCHMIDT SAYS:  Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm. 9 Fire Ant SCHMIDT SAYS:  Sharp, mildly alarmin...

For billions of years, all life has relied on Earth’s predictable rhythm of day and night. It’s encoded in the DNA of all plants and animals. Humans have radically disrupted this cycle by lighting up the night. Plants and animals depend on Earth’s daily cycle of light and dark rhythm to govern life-sustaining behaviors such as reproduction, nourishment, sleep and protection from predators.      Scientific evidence suggests that artificial light at night has negative and deadly effects on many creatures including amphibians, birds, mammals, insects and plants. NOCTURNAL WILDLIFE: Nocturnal animals sleep during the day and are active at night. Light pollution radically alters their nighttime environment by turning night into day.According to research scientist Christopher Kyba, for nocturnal animals, “the introduction of artificial light probably represents the most drastic change human beings have made to their environment.”“Predators use light to hunt,...

10.Rhino Horn A cure to cancer and hangovers are just a couple of the largely unfounded claims of the benefits of this material. It’s powdered rhino horn is considered a valuable resource in some countries in Asia. Traditional Chinese medicine also makes use of the powder, although having an intact rhino horn is considered a great way to display conspicuous wealth, considering the relative cost and scarcity of the product. 9.Heroin Currently, almost 80% of all opium that’s used in heroin is sourced in Afghanistan. During the 1990s, Latin America was the biggest source of the drug in the United States. Heroin travels directly to the brain, transforms into morphine and seeks opioid receptors responsible for breathing and other automatic cognitive processes necessary for life. Due to its euphoria-inducing qualities, heroin is one of the most addictive and destructive drugs in the world. 8.Cocaine Another incredibly addictive and expensive stimulant is co...

The majority of disappearances can be attributed to the area’s unique features. The Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current flowing from the Gulf of Mexico around the Florida Straits northeastward toward Europe, is extremely swift and turbulent. It can quickly erase any evidence of a disaster. The unpredictable Caribbean-Atlantic storms that give birth to waves of great size as well as waterspouts often sp ell disaster for pilots and mariners. (Not to mention that the area is in “hurricane alley.”) The topography of the ocean floor varies from extensive shoals to some of the deepest marine trenches in the world. With the interaction of strong currents over reefs, the topography is in a constant state of flux and breeds development of new navigational hazards. Not to be underestimated is the human factor. A large number of pleasure boats travel the water between Florida’s Gold Coast (the most densely populated area in the world) and the Bahamas. All to often, crossings are attempted...

The internet contains at least 4.7 billion websites that have been indexed by search engines, according to one Dutch researcher. That huge number barely scratches the surface of what's really out there, however. The rest is known as the deep web, which is 400 to 500 times larger than the surface internet, according to some estimates. Most of that is made up of innocent content, such as emails, social media profiles, subscription sites, and anything that you need to fill out a form to access. But because the deep web is hidden from search engines, some people use it for more nefarious purposes. The dark web is the subset of the deep web that's known as a haven for criminal activity. Ranging from drug transactions like those of the now shut-down Silk Road to resources for hit men, terrorists, and pedophiles, the dark web's illicit marketplaces generate more than $500,000 per day. That's made possible by its near total anonymity, thanks to the lack of DNS and IP addr...

Wi-Fi has revolutionized the experience of connecting online, but it has already been one-upped. The radiowave technology may be soon replaced with Li-Fi, the wireless internet alternative that is 100 times faster than the Wi-Fi we use today. The secret behind Li-Fi, which was invented in 2011 by Harald Haas from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, is that it uses light rather than radiowaves to transfer internet data, and the frequency of light has a range that is 10,000-times greater than radiowaves. Li-Fi has the power to download a full-length HD movie in just a few seconds. VIDEO : LI-FI, 100X faster than WIFI!