Category: Hydrology

The First Human Beings to Migrate to North America

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The first people to arrive in North America are suspected to have arrived 15,800 years ago. Sea levels were much lower because of polar ice caps being frozen, which allowed modern day Siberia and Alaska, United States of America, to be connected. How migration occurred is still debated, with some scholars hypothesizing that walking whilst hunting large mammals was the most likely way, while others propose that the indigenous people of North America hunted along the shoreline using maritime skill sets and travel vehicles. 10,000 years ago, the ice sheets receded northbound allowing for civilizations to domesticate northern British Columbia, Canada

The Reason Life Upon Earth Migrated From the Ocean Onto Land

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Billions of years ago when the first living organisms started harnessing the energy of the sun through photosynthesis, they began producing a waste product which was oxygen. When oxygen rises high up into the atmosphere, it transforms into ozone which is why the Earth has a thin protective layer of ozone which alongside the magnetic field, helps protect the Earth from the violent ultraviolet radiation spewed out by the sun. As plants, microbes, and fungi migrated from the water to land, even more oxygen was produced, extending the ozone layer to become much more formidable. This was the catalyst for life migrating onto dry land which occurred 450,000,000 – 500,000,000 (450 million – 500 million) years ago during the Paleozoic Era, specifically during the Ordovician and Silurian periods

The Center of the World and the Reason It Will Not Exist During the 22nd Century

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Kiribati (pronounced “kir-ah-bas”) in the Pacific Ocean is in the center of the world because it is the only country which is in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere as well as the east and the west of the International Date Line; no other country has that designation. Kiribati is located upon the equator, which historically has been devoid of cyclones, however global weather patterns are shifting due to climate change and the equatorial zone is now subject to the path of cyclones. Climate predictions have definitively and conclusively demonstrated that Kiribati will be completely submerged beneath the ocean by the end of the 21st century

The Reason the Coriolis Force Does Not Affect the Way Water Flows Within Drainage

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Both clockwise and counterclockwise flowing drains can be found regardless of the hemisphere in which they are observed. The Coriolis force is too weak to affect such small bodies of water, which is why this occurs. The effect is more measurably observed in large bodies of water like the ocean which is where hurricanes and typhoons begin to emerge. The reason the Coriolis effect takes place is because of the northern and southern pole. If observed from the northern pole, the Earth rotates counterclockwise however when viewed from the southern pole, the Earth appears to rotate clockwise. The analogy of a spinning disc helps to illustrate this image. From the top, a disc appears to spin clockwise as it plays the content stored upon it, but if viewed from below, that same disc would appear to the observer as if rotating counter clockwise

The Original Version of the Statue of Liberty

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The Statue of Liberty was provided as a gift to the U.S. from the French public to celebrate the U.S. French alliance during the Revolutionary War. This gift however was not originally designed for the U.S., as its sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi (pronounced “fred-reek ah-goost bar-told-ee”) had traveled to Egypt to pitch the idea of an enormous woman like the Statue of Liberty, standing at the entrance of the Suez Canal. This original design was to be veiled to comply with then Egyptian values, and holding a lantern representing Egypt carrying the light of progress into Asia. Initially the Egyptian government liked this idea but because the cost was exorbitantly high, plans were eventually scrapped. Bartholdi redesigned his concept to depict a Roman goddess which is more European and therefore palatable to the U.S. conscious. In addition to this, Bartholdi also wanted to ensure that this new design represented freedom, not progress, to reflect American sentiment during this period

Analogs of the Christian Bible’s Epic of Noah’s Ark

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In London, England in 2014, Dr. Irving Finkel, one of, if not the worlds most foremost authoritive upon cuneiform writing, published a book entitled “The Ark Before Noah” which states that a 3700 year old Sumerian tablet translated by Finkel depicts the Christian biblical story of Noah and the flood which drowned the world. This tablet is at the very least 1000 years older than that of the Biblical epic. In the Christina Bible, Noah is warned of a cataclysmic flood by God. A similar story exists in ancient Indian Vedic texts in which King Manu was forewarned by Lord Vishnu in the form a fish, of a great flood impending, with Manu constructing a large boat and ultimately surviving. In the Babylonian poem the Epic of Gilgamesh, the protagonist Utnapishtim (pronounced “ut-nah-pish-tim”) is advised of an impending flood by the god Enki (pronounced “en-kee”). In ancient Aztec culture, a sacred male and female couple hide within a hollow tree with corn while holding steady as the deluge of a great flood envelops the Earth. Ancient Celtic, Norse, and Chinese mythology also account similar stories in which a great flood occurs and only some survive. The common denominator between all of these stories is intervention by a force which knew ahead of time of the impending cataclysm

The Accidental Discovery of Tea and the Agricultural Advents Developed by Chinese Emperor Jiang Shinian

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Tea was discovered entirely by accident. The first emperor of ancient China, Emperor Jiang Shinian (Shen Nung or Shennong) was boiling water in his palace courtyard when a tea leaf fell from above, and into the boiling pot. Due to the pleasant scent, Jiang ingested the water as it cooled and by coincidence discovered the activity of tea consumption. The name Jiang Shinian directly translates to mean “Devine Husbandman” within Mandarin, as it is believed Jiang developed multiple Chinese agricultural advents (e.g. crop cultivation for medicinal herbs, soil managment strategies, irrigation etc.). It should be noted, this account of the discovery of tea is believed to most likely be fictitious and mythological in origin by Chinese historians during the modern day

The Reason The Ganges River is Considered a Living Goddess Within Hinduism

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In Hinduism it is believed that Lord Shiva, one of the most important gods in Hinduism, absorbed the powers of the goddess Ganga as she fell from the heavens, and through the locks of his hair. This is why the Ganges River is believed to be a living goddess, with the power to wash away the sins of a lifetime. It is written in Hindu mythology that Ganga will cease to exist in the Age of Downfall which seems to be the case as the glaciers which feed the Ganges River have been retreating at a steady pace

The Loudest Animal Upon Earth

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Blue whales communicate at volumes up to 185 decibels, and can be heard tens of kilometers away and possibly even hundreds of kilometers away. It is believed that the U.S. Navy’s Sound Navigation and Ranging (SONAR) transmitters can produce sounds underwater up to 215 decibels. To provide a frame of reference, the Saturn V rocket launch produced a sound of 200 decibels, loud enough to kill a human being. The blue whale is the loudest animal within the ocean in terms of continuous, sustained sound

The Development of Japanese Tea Gardens and Tea Houses

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The Japanese tea garden is the antithesis of the Buddhist Zen garden and originated in the 9th century after tea was imported into Japan from China. Buddhist monks would drink Chinese tea to keep themselves awake during long meditation sessions. Over the subsequent centuries, tea drinking became an elaborate practice which was highly ritualized with samurai, geishas, and monks all serving tea using these same concepts. Japanese tea gardens developed during the 16th century with direct influence from the concepts of tea ceremonies, designed and constructed to surround tea houses