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d. He had brothers, Thorvald and Thorstein, and a half-sister, Freydis. In the year 999 BCE, Ericsson sailed to Norway to visit King Olaf Trygvson. On his way the ship was blown off course and he landed on one of the Hebrides islands. Continuing poor weather made it impossible for him to leave so he spent the summer on the island.

. She gave birth to his son and as his departure date drew near, she asked that he take her with him. He refused, citing her family connections. Thorgunna had a reputation for being able to predict the future, and vowed that even though Leif was leaving them, one day she and their son would journey to find him and the experience would not be a good one.

, while other sources claim that when the boy was old enough to travel, he found Leif.

Huge meat-eating, land-living dinosaurs evolved into birds by constantly shrinking for over 50 million years, scientists have revealed.

Previous work has shown that theropod dinosaurs, the dinosaur group which included Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor and gave rise to modern birds, must have decreased in size at some point in their evolution into small, agile flyers.

But size changes frequently occurred in dinosaur evolution, so the research team members, led by Mike Lee, from the University of Adelaide, Australia, wanted to find out if the dramatic size reduction associated with the origin of birds was unique. They also wanted to measure the rate of evolution in dinosaurs using a large data set

As the Earth rotates it turns away from the sun’s light, and the sky becomes dark. However, if you think about the millions and millions of bright stars all around the sky at night, you might start to wonder why it isn’t just as bright as it was when we were facing the sun!

wice being turned back by ice, Hudson embarked on a third voyage–this time on behalf of the Dutch East India Company–in 1609. This time, he chose to continue east by a more southern route, drawn by reports of a possible channel across the North American continent to the Pacific. After navigating the Atlantic coast, Hudson’s ships sailed up a great river (which would later bear his name) but turned back when they determined it was not the channel they sought. On a fourth and final voyage, undertaken for England in 1610-11, Hudson spent months drifting through the vast Hudson Bay and eventually fell victim to a mutiny by his crew. Hudson’s discoveries laid the groundwork for Dutch colonization of the Hudson River region, as well as English land claims in Canada.

enry Hudson made his first voyage west from England in 1607, when he was hired to find a shorter route to Asia from Europe through the Arctic Ocean. After

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. Its famous 'Red Spot' and raging gas storms give it an impressive if not intimidating appearance. As well as having many moons, Jupiter also has a number of rings similar to that of Saturn but much less noticeable.  

1. Tears help us see. Starting with the most basic function of tears, they enable us to see. Literally. Tears not only lubricate our eyeballs and eyelids, they also prevent dehydration of our various mucous membranes. No lubrication, no eyesight. Writes Bergman: “Without tears, life would be drastically different for humans–in the short run enormously uncomfortable, and in the long run eyesight would be blocked out altogether.”

2. Tears kill bacteria. No need for Clorox wipes. We’ve got tears! Our own antibacterial and antiviral agent working for us, fighting off all the germs we pick up on community computers, shopping carts, public sinks, and all those places the nasty little guys make their homes and procreate. Tears contain lysozyme, a fluid that the germ-a-phobic dreams about in her sleep, because it can kill 90 to 95 percent of all bacteria in just five to 10 minutes! Which translates, I’m guessing, to three months’ worth of colds and stomach viruses.

3. Tears remove toxins. Biochemist William Frey, who has been researching tears for as long as I’ve been searching for sanity, found in one

The birth of each rainbow begins with millions of tiny rain droplets.  The rain droplets serve as a type of reflector of light.  White light enters one individual rain droplet and exits as one specific color of the spectrum.  Without millions of rain droplets, a rainbow would not occur.  If you only had a few rain droplets you would only see a few colors.  This is typically why rainbow appear after a rain storm

Each rain droplet has a function in the formation of the rainbow. Sunlight enters the rain droplet at a specific angle and the rain droplet separates the white light into many different colors.  This angle is a fixed measurement between your eye

and the sun.  What color is refracted depends upon the critical angle,                   which is the angle the sunlight strikes the back of the rain droplet.  Red light bends the least, exiting the rain droplet at a 42 degree angle, while Violet light bends the most, exiting the rain droplet at a 40 degree angle.  All of the other colors of the rainbow exit the rain droplets at some angle between 40 and 42 degrees, thus making up the colors of the rainbow ROYGBIV, this order never changes.

s is pretty uncommon, just 11 out of every 1,000 Americans. This uncanny trait is caused by several factors, and can actually develop over tim

Sometimes, though, the concentration and distribution of melanin isn't uniform, which leads to a condition known as heterochromia. This condition can present itself in different ways. There's complete heterochromia, when each eye is a distinctly different color, say, one blue and one brown. Central heterochromia is when the eyes show various colors, such as a blue iris with a golden-brown ring around the pupil. And sectoral heterochromia is when one iris has a splash of color that's different from its overall hue, a trait that actress Kate Bosworth has.

come in many different shapes and sizes. They can be as small as four feet (1 1/4 meters) long weighing just 100 pounds (45 kilograms), or as large as 30 feet (nine meters) long weighing up to 11,000 pounds (950 kilograms). All dolphins, including even the largest, can move quickly through the water, using paddle-shaped forelimbs called flippers to steer, dorsal fins on their backs to stay balanced, and powerful tail fins called flukes to move forward. Their torpedo-shaped bodies flow smoothly in the water, so they don't make many waves. They use their flippers to make sharp turns and sudden stops. All dolphins have blowholes on the tops of their heads. These mammals breathe through their blowholes. They have to go to the surface of the water to breathe. Each dolphin has just one blowhole.

For starters, cats’ visual fields are broader than ours, spanning roughly 200 degrees instead of 180 degrees, and their visual acuity isn’t as good. So, the things humans can sharply resolve at distances of 100-200 feet look blurry to cats, which can see these objects at distances of up to 20 feet. That might not sound so great, but there’s a trade-off: Because of the various photoreceptors parked in cats’ retinas, they kick our asses at seeing in dim light. Instead of the color-resolving, detail-loving cone cells that populate the center of human retinas, cats (and dogs) have many more rod cells, which excel in dim light and are responsible for night-vision capability. The rod cells also refresh more quickly, which lets cats pick up very rapid movements — like, for example, the quickly shifting path a marauding laser dot might trace. Lastly, cats see colors differently than we do, which is why the cat-versions of these images look less vibrant than the people-versions. Scientists used to think cats were dichromats — able to only see two colors — but they’re not, exactly. While feline photoreceptors are most sensitive to wavelengths in the blue-violet and greenish-yellow ranges, it appears they might be able to see a little bit of green as well. In other words, cats are mostly red-green color blind, as are many of us, with a little bit of green creeping in.

Cats and dogs are just like color blind humans, seeing some colors but not all of them. For the bright daytime light, cells known as cones are needed. Humans have three kinds of cones, enabling them to see blue, red and green.

Cats and dogs, on the other hand, have just two kinds of cone cells (blue and green sensitive), allowing them to see only partial color.

while we’re on the subject, contrary to the legend that cats can see perfectly in total darkness, they do not have those superpowers. But cats require only about one-sixth of the light that humans do, making their night vision a whole lot better than ours

The planet that Voyager uncovered is a stormy, windswept world with a vivid blue hue. Its highly active atmosphere is surprising, since it receives so little sunlight to power its weather systems. Like the other giant outer planets, Neptune has no solid surface. It also has a system of rings and more than a dozen moons.

Neptune is the smallest of the four giant outer planets. The diameter at its equator is about 30,775 miles (49,528 kilometers), as measured at a level of the atmosphere where the pressure is 1 bar (the pressure at sea level on Earth). This makes it slightly smaller than Uranus but nearly four times as big as Earth. Neptune’s mass is about 1.2 times greater than Uranus’, however, and more than 17 times greater than Earth’s. It is the third most massive planet in the solar system, after Jupiter and Saturn. Like the other outer planets, Neptune has a low density—only about 1.6 times the density of water. However, it is the densest of the four, being roughly 25 percent denser than Uranus.

Whenever we don't have a good understanding of a subject, say, of people or countries, then we tend to make assumptions about them. Stereotype is nothing but those assumptions that have become common knowledge. Whenever you make judgments about people without knowing them, you are stereotyping them. Stereotyping makes people generalize things. More often, they are all false assumptions. Though there are both positive and negative stereotypes, a majority of them are offensive. People generally stereotype out of bias against a particular group of people or religion. Stereotyping becomes a way of conveying their dislike. Of course, stereotyping stems from a commonly held view of a particular group or race. This view may arise from an incident or false assumption, and then maybe used to color the entire community with the same brush. There are various types of stereotypes. However, the most common ones are racial stereotypes and gender stereotypes. Race, nationality, gender and sexual orientation are the main factors of stereotyping. Stereotyping must be avoided at all costs, as it leads to treating groups as a single entity. Given below are examples of stereotypes that people commonly use.

Examples Of Stereotypes Negative Stereotypes All blond women are dumb. All red heads are sluts. Christians are homophobic. They are blinded by God and will recruit you if you go near them. All politicians are philanders and think only of personal gain and benefit. If I wear Goth clothing I'm a part of a rock band, depressed, or do drugs. Girls are only concerned about physical appearance. Guys are messy and unclean. Men who spend too much time on the computer or read are geeks. Men who are not into sports are termed as gay. All librarians are women who are old, wear glasses, tie a high bun, and have a perpetual frown on their face. Girls are not good at sports. All teenagers are rebels. All children don't enjoy healthy food. Only anorexic women can become models. Women who smoke and drink do not have morals. Men who like pink are effeminate.

Positive Stereotypes All Blacks are great basketball players. All Asians are geniuses. All Indians are deeply spiritual. All Latinos dance well. All Whites are successful. Asians have high IQs. They are smarter than most in Math and Science. These people are more likely to succeed in school. African Americans can dance. All Canadians are exceptionally polite. French are romantic. All Asians know kung fu. All African American men are well endowed. Italians are good lovers

Birds have many physical features, besides wings, that work together to enable them to fly. They need lightweight, streamlined, rigid structures for flight. The four forces of flight – weight, lift, drag and thrust – affect the flight of birds.

Flying birds have: lightweight, smooth feathers – this reduces the forces of weight and drag a beak, instead of heavy, bony jaws and teeth – this reduces the force of weight an enlarged breastbone called a sternum for flight muscle attachment – this helps with the force of thrust light bones – a bird’s bones are basically hollow with air sacs and thin, tiny cross pieces to make bones stronger – this reduces the force of weight a rigid skeleton to provide firm attachments for powerful flight muscles – this helps with the force of thrust a streamlined body – this helps reduce the force of drag wings – these enable the force of lift.