At over 2000 kilometers long The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth :

The Great Barrier Reef is one of the seven wonders of the natural world. It is larger than the Great Wall of China and the only living thing on earth visible from space.

The Great Barrier Reef stretches over 3000km (1800 miles) almost parallel to the Queensland coast, from near the coastal town of Bundaberg, up past the tip of Cape York. The reef, between 15 kilometres and 150 kilometres off shore and around 65 Km wide in some parts, is a gathering of brilliant, vivid coral providing divers with the most spectacular underwater experience imaginable.
A closer encounter with the Great Barrier Reef's impressive coral gardens reveals many astounding underwater attractions including the world's largest collection of corals (in fact, more than 400 different kinds of coral), coral sponges, molluscs, rays, dolphins, over 1500 species of tropical fish, more than 200 types of birds, around 20 types of reptiles including sea turtles and giant clams over 120 years old.

Photo Credits : Unknown

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The largest number of children ever born to one woman was 69 :

The greatest officially recorded number of children born to one mother is 69, to the wife of Feodor Vassilyev (b. 1707–c.1782), a peasant from Shuya, Russia. In 27 confinements she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets.
        Numerous contemporaneous sources exist, which suggest that this seemingly improbably and statistically unlikely story is true. The case was reported to Moscow by the Monastery of Nikolsk on 27 Feb 1782, which had recorded every birth. It is noted that, by this time, only two of the children who were born in the period c. 1725–65 failed to survive their infancy.

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World’s Leggiest Animal Has 750 Legs :

First seen by government scientists in 1928, Illacme plenipes—”the acme of plentiful legs” has more legs than any other animal! It's a millipede, of course. What else could it possibly be?
        The strange thing is how tiny it is. We're talking scarcely more than 3 cm (1.2 in) long and about half a millimetre (0.2 in) wide. In this diminutive frame they pack some 750 legs!
         Isn't that amazing? You'd think they'd have legs on their back, legs on their sides and legs on their legs... just pure legs everywhere! Instead it's a skinny but otherwise perfectly normal millipede. They just happen to be unbelievably leggy.



Photo Credits : Source

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Rattlesnake can bite even after its Dead :

Did you know that a rattlesnake can bite a victim even after its head has been removed? Scientists say that its a reflex action (a response that is built into its nervous system and doesn't need to be learned ). Rattlesnake heads have been known to make their striking motions for up to one minute after decapitation.

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Osborne 1 - perhaps the first laptop ever :

Released in 1981 by the Osborne Computer Corporation, the Osborne 1 is considered to be the first true portable computer - it closes-up for protection, and has a carrying handle. It even has an optional battery pack, so it doesn't have to plugged into the 110VAC outlet for power. While quite revolutionary, the Osborne does have its limitations. For example, the screen is only 5" (diagonal) in size, and can't display more than 52 characters per line of text. To compensate, you can actually scroll the screen display back and forth with the cursor keys to show lines of text up to 128 characters wide. The Osborne was a good deal at $1795, it also came bundled with about $1500 of free software.

Photo Credits : Source.

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Pablo Escobar was making so much money, he spent $2,500 a month on rubber bands to bundle up his stacks of cash :

Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was making so much money, he spent $2,500 a month on rubber bands to bundle up his stacks of cash. Pablo was earning so much that each year he writes off 10% of the money because the rats ate it in storage or it got damaged by water or lost.
         In most businesses, seeing a return on investment (ROI) of 100% would be more than enough for a company to thrive. By some estimates, notorious Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar enjoyed an ROI of as much as 20,000%. Put another way, for every $1 he put into his business, he got about $200 in return.

Photo Credits : Source

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Female Kangaroos Have Three Vaginas :

Female Kangaroos, Koalas, Wombats and Tasmanian devils all have 3 vaginas. The diagram below explains the complicated plumbing. This set-up is shared by all marsupials – the group of mammals that raise their young in pouches. Koalas, wombats and Tasmanian devils all share the three-vagina structure. The side ones carry sperm to the two uteruses (and males marsupials often have two-pronged penises), while the middle vagina sends the joey down to the outside world. Note that the ureters, which carry urine from the kidneys to the bladder, pass through the gaps between the three tubes. In placental mammals, like us, the ureters develop in a different way, and don’t go through the reproductive system. As we develop, the precursors to the reproductive tubes eventually fuse into a single vagina. In marsupials, this can’t happen.

Photo Credits : Source1, Source2

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In 1923, German money was so worthless that it was used as wallpaper and insulation!

After World War I ended, Germany was forced to pay $132 billion in reparations. They were forced to pay, because they were blamed for World War I even occurring. The problem was that they didn’t have $132 billion or even close to it in their gold and revenue as a country. The value of their currency plummeted and became utterly worthless. They needed hundreds of dollars to pay for a loaf of bread. The whole thing was ridiculous. People ended up collecting the money and using it as wallpaper to insulate their homes, because that was a more valuable use of the paper.

The country was in dire straits by 1923. They began reevaluating the situation and trying to find other means of currency to reboost the economy. They eventually settled on the Reichsmark as their new currency and built the economy back up based on that.

Photo Credits : Source

 

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One Container Ship Pollutes As Much As 50 Million Cars :

Much ado and attention has been paid to the pollutants emmitted from the tail pipes of cars and trucks in recent years, both here in the U.S. and across the pond in Europe. With an estimated 250 million passenger vehicles in the U.S. alone, it would seem that cars would be a major contributor to pollution and air quality issues here and abroad. But newly released data from Europe suggests that a single container ship may cause as much pollution as 50 million cars and release as much as 5,000 tons of sulfur oxide into the air annually. And there are 90,000 such ships of varying sizes across the world at any one time.

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The creators of Adidas and Puma were brothers and they were both Nazis :

 The German sportswear companies Puma and Adidas are to end a feud started 60 years ago by their founding brothers. Adi Dassler (who founded Adidas) and Rudolf Dassler (who founded Ruda, later changed to Puma) started making sports shoes together in their mother's wash-room in the 1920s.
        They fell out during World War II in 1948, probably over political differences, and founded firms on either side of a river in southern Germany. Adi went on to start his own line of shoes, "Adidas" (based on his name, Adi Dassler). Rudi started his own line of shoes, "Puma", named after the German word for "Panther".
         The two brothers did not speak until they passed away and that is unfortunate

Photo Credits : Source1, Source2

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Olympus Mons, The largest of the all known volcanoes in the solar system :

 The largest of the volcanoes in the Tharsis Montes region, as well as all known volcanoes in the solar system, is Olympus Mons. Olympus Mons is a shield volcano 624 km (374 mi) in diameter (approximately the same size as the state of Arizona), 25 km (16 mi) high, and is rimmed by a 6 km (4 mi) high scarp. A caldera 80 km (50 mi) wide is located at the summit of Olympus Mons. To compare, the largest volcano on Earth is Mauna Loa. Mauna Loa is a shield volcano 10 km (6.3 mi) high and 120 km (75 mi) across. The volume of Olympus Mons is about 100 times larger than that of Mauna Loa. In fact, the entire chain of Hawaiian islands (from Kauai to Hawaii) would fit inside Olympus Mons!

Photo Credits : Source

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