Thought of the Day

'Happiness is an elusive state of mind, not to be gained by clumsy pursuit. It is givento those who do not sue for it; to be unconcerned about a desired good is probablythe only way to possess it.'- Ruskin Bond

Cleopatra

Cleopatra VII Philopator (in Greek, Κλεοπάτρα Φιλοπάτωρ; January 69 BC – 30 BC) was a Hellenistic ruler of Egypt, originally sharing power with her father Ptolemy XII and later with her brothers/husbands Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV; eventually gaining sole rule of Egypt. Cleopatra committed suicide, the traditional date being 12 August 30 BC, allegedly by means of an asp bite.

The Egyptian cobra is the most common cobra in Africa and is responsible for many deaths in Africa. It lives from the Sahara Desert to the Syrian Desert. The Egyptian cobra, like all other cobras, raises its hood when in danger.
The Egyptian cobra is nocturnal. But it can be seen basking in the sun at times in the early morning. females lay 8-33 eggs in termite mounds, and the eggs hatch after an incubation time of 60 days.
Most ancient sources say that Cleopatra committed suicide by being bitten by an aspis, which translates into English as "asp." Plutarch tells us that she did experiments on condemned prisoners and found aspis venom to be the most painless of all fatal poisons. Today it is generally believed that this "aspis" is the Naja haje.
A stylised Egyptian Cobra, representing the goddess Wadjet, was the symbol of sovereignty of the pharaohs, and therefore, it is also called Uraeus serpent.

Shrew's Fiddle

A shrew's fiddle or neck violin is a variation of the yoke, pillory or rigid irons whereby the wrists are locked in front of the bound person by a hinged board or steel bar.[1] It was originally used in the 18th century as a way of punishing women who were caught arguing or fighting.

source: wikipedia

Mariana Trench

The Mariana Trench (or Mariana's Trench) is the deepest part of the world's oceans, and the deepest location on the surface of the Earth's crust. It has a maximum depth of about 11 km (6.8 mi), and is located in the western North Pacific Ocean, to the east and south of the Mariana Islands, near Guam.
The trench forms the boundary between two tectonic plates, where the Pacific Plate is subducted beneath the Philippine Plate. The bottom of the trench is farther below sea level than Mount Everest is above it (8,848m/29,028ft). At the bottom, the water column above exerts a pressure of 108.6 MPa, over one thousand times the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level.
source:wikipedia

Lava Lake (Nyiragongo)

Mount Nyiragongo is a volcano in the Virunga Mountains associated with the Great Rift Valley. It is located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, about 20 km north of the town of Goma and Lake Kivu and just west of the border with Rwanda. The main crater is 250 m deep, two km wide and sometimes contains a lava lake. Nyiragongo and nearby Nyamuragira are together responsible for 40% of Africa's historical volcanic eruptions.

source: wikipedia

The Dunning-Kruger Effect

The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon wherein people who have little knowledge tend to think that they know more than they do, while others who have much more knowledge tend to think that they know less. Dunning and Kruger were awarded a 2000 Ig Nobel prize for their work.
The phenomenon was demonstrated in a series of experiments performed by Justin Kruger and David Dunning, both of Cornell University. Their results were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in December 1999.
Kruger and Dunning noted a number of previous studies which tend to suggest that in skills as diverse as reading comprehension, operating a motor vehicle, and playing chess or tennis, "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" (as Charles Darwin put it). They hypothesized that with a typical skill which humans may possess in greater or lesser degree,

• Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.


• Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.


• Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.


• If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.
  They set out to test these hypotheses on human subjects consisting of Cornell undergraduates who were registered in various psychology courses. In a series of studies, Kruger and Dunning examined self-assessment of logical reasoning skills, grammatical skills, and humor. After being shown their test scores, the subjects were again asked to estimate their own rank, whereupon the competent group accurately estimated their rank, while the incompetent group still overestimated their own rank. As Dunning and Kruger noted,
  Across four studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd.
  Meanwhile, people with true knowledge tended to underestimate their competence. A follow-up study suggests that grossly incompetent students improve both their skill level and their ability to estimate their class rank only after extensive tutoring in the skills they had previously lacked.
  Daniel Ames and Lara Kammrath extended this work to sensitivity to others, and the subjects' perception of how sensitive they were. Some more work by Burson Larrick and Joshua Klayman has suggested that the effect is not so obvious and may be due to noise and bias levels.

Source :Wikipedia

Mt. Everest

George Herbert Leigh Mallory (18 June 1886 – 8 June/9 June 1924) was an English Mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s. On the third expedition, in June of 1924, Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine both disappeared somewhere high on the North-East ridge during (or perhaps after completing) the final stage of their attempt to make the first ascent of the world's highest mountain. The pair's last known sighting was only a few hundred metres from the summit. Mallory's ultimate fate was unknown for 75 years, until his body was finally discovered in 1999. Whether or not they reached the summit before they died remains a subject of speculation and continuing research.
Mallory is famously said to have replied to the question "why do you want to climb Mt. Everest?" with the retort: "because it is there", which has been called "the most famous four words in mountaineering". Recently some questions have been raised regarding the authenticity of that quote, and whether Mallory had actually said it, with a possibility the quote was invented by a newspaper reporter.
Source: wikipedia

VALLEY OF FLOWERS
High in the Himalayan ranges of Garhwal hills of Uttaranchal lies an enchanted valley. Here flowerful pastures with clear running streams are set against silver birches and shining snow peakf. Dew lies thick on the flowers,birds sing in the surrounding forest and the air is pure and charged with floral smells. Hidden from the probing eyes of civilisation, this valley had been known to the inhabitants as the Bhyundar Valley, the playground of fairies and nymphs. Trespassing their celestial abode was avoided although shepherds did take the liberty to graze their cattle here. Legends associate this valley with the area from where Hanumanji of Ramayana collected. 'Sanjeevani' herbs to revive Lakshmana, the younger brother of Rama. Hanuman had to visit far-flung areas in his search for the life-saving herbs, some named after him.
The Valley was introduced to the world as the Valley of Flowers by Frank S, Smith - mountaineer, explorer, botanist who camped here for several weeks in the monsoon of 1937 and did valuable exploratory work. He authored a book called "The Valley of Flowers" which unveiled the beauty and floral splendours of the valley and thus threw open the doors of this verdant jewel to nature-enthusiasts all over the world.In 1939, Miss Margarate Legge, a botanist deputed by the botanical gardens of Edinburgh arrived at the valley for further studies. While she was traversing some rocky slopes to collect flowers, she slipped off and was lost for ever in the garden of the gods. Her sister later visited the valley and erected a memorial on the spot where she was buried by the locals. The thoughtful memorial is still there and the lines inscribed on the marble slab read:
"I will lift mine eyes unto the Hills from whence cometh my strength"

source: Garhwaltourism.com