Sunflowers, one or many
Take a close look at     a sunflower in full bloom. What do you see? Can you see the small petal-like rays on the edges of the flowers? These are actually tiny imperfect flowers. And what makes them imperfect is the fact that they lack stamens – the pollen producing part of a flower. The disk in the middle is made up of small flowers yellow, brown or purple in colour. The sunflower plant is very useful. Its flowers yield a yellow dye, its seeds are used for producing oil and its leaves are used as fodder for animals.

$ 10 m around the neck
An unidentified visitor admires a $10 million Cartier neeklace in a showcase during the presentation of the new collection of the Cartier Haute Joaillerie jewellery designers in Zurich, Switzerland. The unique snake-shaped necklace, which is made up of emeralds and diamonds and is dominated by two huge emeralds of 200 carats each, is named “Eternity”.

Dancing Devils
Devil dancers to watch the dance outside the church in San Francisco de Yare, about (80 kilometre south of Caracas, Venezuela, Symbolising the eternal struggle between good and evil, the dance began in southern Spain in the fifth century, when the Catholic Church used a version of the dance to convert pagans to Christianity.

Taxed If You Have A Beard
Peter the Great who was the Emperor of Russia during the period 1682 - 1725 was responsible for replacing the traditional Russian calendar with the Julian calendar. He was so influenced by Western European culture that in his zeal to convert Russians he imposed a tax on men who persisted in growing beards that gave them a very Russian look! So taken in was he by European culture that he founded a new city, St. Petersburg, and moved the Russian capital there so that he could be closer to Europe.

Mates lured by scent
One would imagine that given the beautiful colours of their wings, female butterflies would be fluttering them to attract the male. But no. Female butterflies have a store of perfume in their bodies. This store weighs about one-ten thousandth of a milligram. The female uses just a tiny fraction of this and yet, even from a distance of 10 km the male manages to catch the scent and makes a beeline for her!

Space Station
The International Space Station is shown in an image taken by the STS-110 crew members on board the Space Shuttle Atlantis following the undocking of the two spacecraft some 247 statute miles above the North Atlantic. The shuttle astronauts left the space station 27,000 pounds heavier with the addition of a 44-foot-long aluminium girder, the first piece of a framework that will ultimately extend 356 feet by 2004.

The biggest spewing of ash
One of the best ways to tell the size of an eruption is to work out how much ash it blew out. On this basis, the biggest volcanic eruption in history was that of Tambora in Indonesia in 1815, which blasted out some 80 cubic kilometre of ash into the air! The second biggest eruption also happened in Indonesia, at Krakatau. But at 18 cubic kilometre, Krakatau looks tame compared to Tambora.

Crocodile Tactics
You might find this tough to believe, but freshwater crocodiles are harmless to man. They eat only fish and small aquatic animals. The problem though is spotting the difference between a fresh water crocodile and an estuarine (salt water) one. You have to be an expert to tell one from the other. The salt water species is the world’s largest living reptile — it can grow to over 6 metre in length — and also the most dangerous. Estuarine crocodiles kill hundreds of people each year. They submerge themselves in water with only their eyes and nostrils showing, making it very difficult for someone to spot their presence. They attack unsuspecting prey suddenly, drag the victim by tightly holding on to a limb between their jaws and then kill it by twisting the limb so that the prey twists and rolls over into the water several times before drowning. The crocodile’s tail is very powerful, and is often the weapon with which it hits the prey so that the victim loses balance and falls into the water. Sounds gory, doesn’t it? Unless you’re very sure that the reptile in the water is a fresh water one, you shouldn’t be going in for a dip.