The Three Peaks of Lavaredo

The Tre Cime di Lavaredo, three battlement-like peaks that loom steeply and mightily out of the scree in the Sesto Dolomites, consisting of the Cima Grande (big), the Cima Ovest (western) and the Cima Piccola (little). Since they were first climbed in 1869, the Tre Cime di Lavaredo have been considered by climbers to be among the most coveted summit destinations in the Alps. 

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There are a few summits that have come to symbolise the word “mountain”. The Tre Cime di Lavaredo would certainly top an imaginary hit list of these. Many people have seen the Tre Cime in illustrations hundreds of times and think that they know them, but the moment they see them "in nature" is a moment not to be forgotten. How should we interact with the best known scene in the Dolomites? Mountain climbers all agree. Simply looking is not enough; this natural monument must also be touched. 

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Every year on lovely summer days, the view of the Tre Cime from the north brings about a veritable migration from the Auronzo Hut. The non-mountaineers are distinctly in the majority – just like the alpinists who scramble up the cliff faces to the summit. Much sought-after and much attacked: the normal route or fixed rope route on the standard tour of the Cima Grande (big peak) offered by Sesto's mountain guides is not only tackled by extreme climbers. About one thing there is consensus: these three jagged battlements are unbelievably beautiful.

                                                   Source : Hotel-drei-zinnen.com

Can Lightning Strikes Us When We're Indoors?

An estimated 24,000 people are killed by lightning strikes around the world each year and about 240,000 are injured as a result of the strike. Lightning strikes can produce severe injuries, and have a mortality rate of between 10% and 30%, with up to 80% of survivors sustaining long-term injuries. These severe injuries are not usually caused by thermal burns, since the current is too brief to greatly heat up tissues instead, nerves and muscles may be directly damaged by the high voltage producing holes in theircell membranes, a process called electroporation.

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In a direct strike, the electrical currents in the flash channel passes directly through the victim. The alternating stroke currents behave more like AC electricity, where the energy travels on the surface of the conductor and at the frequency typical of lightning, "everything becomes a conductor", therefore the energy may pass relatively benignly "around" the body, minimizing injury. Lightning is a very dangerous force that, yes, can even reach you indoors if you're in contact with the telephone or plumbing.

If lightning strikes the phone line outside your house, the strike will travel to every phone on the line -- and potentially to you if you are holding the phone. So, if you are indoors during a lightning storm, stay off the phone. If you must call someone, use a cordless or cell phone -- that way, you're not in contact with any wires that run outdoors.

Stay away from plumbing pipes like your bath tub or shower, as well. Lightning has the ability to strike a house or near a house and impart an electrical charge to the metal pipes used for plumbing. If you're touching those pipes or anything connected to those pipes, that electrical charge has a path to you. This threat is not as great as it used to be, because PVC (polyvinyl chloride) is often used for indoor plumbing these days. If you are not sure what your pipes are made of, wait it out.

And while you're at it, switch off your appliances and electronics before the storm hits. Such devices as your computer, television and air conditioner all provide potential pathways between the lightning and you.

                                                      Source - Howstuffworks, Wikipedia

Megalodon - Predator Of Predators

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Megalodon is an extinct species of shark that ruled earth's oceans approximately 28 to 1.5 million years ago. Megalodon is considered as one of the biggest and most deadly marine predators in the history of our Planet. Fossil remains suggest that this giant shark reached a maximum length of 15.9–20.3 metres (52–67 ft), and also confirm that its habitats ranged across the world.

Megalodon had the most powerful bite of any creature that ever lived. whereas a modern Great White Shark chomps with about 1.8 tons of force (and a lion with a wimpy 600 pounds or so), Megalodon chowed down on its prey with a force of between 10.8 and 18.2 tons, enough to crush the skull of a prehistoric whale as easily as a grape.

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Although the bigger-than-Megalodon blue whale is technically a carnivore, it feeds mostly on tiny krill. Megalodon had a diet more befitting an apex predator, feasting on the prehistoric whales that swam the earth's oceans during the Pliocene and Miocene epochs, but also chowing down on dolphins, squids, fish, and even giant turtles (whose shells, as tough as they were, couldn't hold up against 10 tons of biting force). Megalodon may even have attacked the giant whale Leviathan.

So Megalodon was huge, relentless, and the apex predator of the Pliocene and Miocene epochs. What went wrong? Well, there's no lack of theories: Megalodon may have been doomed by global cooling (which culminated in the last Ice Age), or by the gradual disappearance of the giant whales that constituted the bulk of its diet. By the way, some people think Megalodons still lurk in the ocean's depths, but there's absolutely no evidence to support this.

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