Want to Make a Quick $50,000? Go out and Catch yourself a Snake

Throughout history, explorers' tales abound of giant snakes measuring 30, 40, and even 50 feet in length. For example, in 1907 a British adventurer named Percy Fawcett claimed to have shot a giant anaconda (Eunectes murinus) measuring 62 feet. Since Fawcett didn't think to bring back the carcass, few people believed his claim. readmore...

Why Do Elephants have Trunks?

An elephant uses its trunk like a hand. It breaks off branches from trees and shrubs with its trunk. It brings food to its mouth with its trunk. Elephants eat leaves, twigs, flowers, grass, and other plants.

An elephant drinks with its trunk. The trunk sucks up water from a stream or water hole. Then the elephant squirts the water into its mouth.

An elephant uses its trunk to take a shower. The elephant squirts water from its trunk over its thick, wrinkled skin. Sometimes an elephant wades into water over its head. Then the underwater elephant sticks its trunk above the water like a snorkel and breathes in air.

How Big are Snakes?

The world’s smallest snake is about 5 inches (about 13 centimeters) long at full growth and weighs less than 0.1 ounce (less than 2 grams). The largest snakes are the anaconda and the reticulated python. They both can grow as long as 33 feet (10 meters) and can weigh up to 550 pounds (250 kilograms).

Saleen S7 the Most Expensive Car?

Saleen S7 $395,000

The S7 power plant is decidedly less outlandish than its ground effects. The motor is derived from a Ford Mustang, then deeply modified. It's made entirely of aluminum, has stainless-steel valves with titanium retainers, and a high vacuum dry sump and stainless-steel exhaust. It breathes through roof-mounted intakes and is mated to a six-speed manual transmission. Power output is a claimed 550 horsepower, with performance of less than four seconds to 60 mph and a top speed in excess of 200 mph. According to the Saleen S7 press release, its aerodynamic ground effects are so effective, and create so much down force (what holds a car to the road at high speeds), that even if you drove the S7 upside down at 160 mph on some sort of Hot Wheels roller-coaster track that exploded into real-life scale, the car wouldn't lose its contact with the road.

World's Thinnest Laptop

At 0.16 inch at its thinnest point, just 0.76 inch at its thickest point, and a mere 3.0 pounds, MacBook Air is so compact and light that you can take it everywhere. But unlike other ultraportable designs, it doesn't compromise on features and performance. MacBook Air includes a bright 13.3-inch widescreen LED display, built-in iSight camera, 2GB of RAM, 80GB hard drive, and a powerful Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4MB L2 Cache. Enjoy also a full-size backlit keyboard with keys that automatically illuminates from behind in low-light conditions, and a spacious solid-state trackpad with multi-touch gesture that lets you zoom, rotate, swipe, and scroll with just a flick or a pinch. Engineered for the wireless world, MacBook Air also comes with 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, and Remote Disc to deliver unparalleled wireless versatility to use any Mac or PC storage drive. The MacBook Air battery is our thinnest ever, yet it doesn't compromise power.

Technical Details

• 1.6 Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4 MB shared L2 cache; Intel GMA X3100 video processor with 144 MB shared memory
• Thinnest, lightest MacBook ever includes multi-touch trackpad, built-in iSight webcam, and up to 5-hour battery life
• One USB 2.0, built-in Wi-Fi (802.11n draft plus 802.11b/g), Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, Micro-DVI video output with adapters
• Preloaded with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system and iLife '08 suite of applications
• 13.3-inch glossy LED-backlit screen; 80 GB hard disk drive; 2 GB of RAM (maximum capacity)

One of the Largest Reservoirs in the World

Aswān High Dam, dam across the Nile River in southern Egypt, located near the city of Aswān. The dam impounds Lake Nasser, one of the largest reservoirs in the world. The High Dam has an embankment 111 m (365 ft) high that extends 3,600 m (11,800 ft) across the river. Named in honor of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, Lake Nasser covers an area more than 480 km (300 mi) long and 16 km (10 mi) wide. The water is used to irrigate farmland and has enabled Egypt to double its agricultural production since the dam was completed. During the rainy season the dam also controls the yearly flooding of the Nile.

Three Gorges Dam

The Three Gorges Dam is among the largest and most ambitious construction projects in Chinese history. The dam will harness the flow of the Yangtze—the world’s third-largest river—in central China to control flooding and generate electricity. Construction on this massive project began in 1994 and is scheduled to be completed in 2009. The dam will rank as the largest in the world.

The Three Gorges Dam is sited on the Yangtze River near Yichang in east central China. When completed, the dam will rank as the largest in the world at a height of 200 m (656 ft) and a length of 1.6 km (1 mi).

Arkansas Largest Dam

The federal government has developed hydroelectric power in the Arkansas, White, and Ouachita river basins. The largest and most famous of the dams is Bull Shoals on the White River. Additional dams, built as part of the Arkansas River Navigation Project, provide for improved flood control as well as expanded power production. The first nuclear power plant in the region was established at Russellville. Conventional steam-powered plants fueled by coal generate 63 percent of the electricity produced in the state, nuclear power plants provide another 30 percent, and the remainder comes from hydroelectric facilities.

The World's Largest River?

Large rivers are located on every continent. The longest river on Earth is the Nile River in Africa, with a length of 6,695 km (4,160 mi) from its headwaters in Burundi to its mouth at the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile River basin covers an area of 3,349,000 sq km (1,293,000 sq mi). The Amazon River in South America carries the largest amount of water and runs for a length of 6,400 km (4,000 mi). This single river contributes 20 percent of the river water that flows into the world’s oceans. The Yellow River (or Huang He) in China gets its name from the yellow sediments of the soils of central China, and it carries the largest amount of sediment to the ocean. The Yellow River is the second longest river in China, at 5,500 km (3,400 mi), after the Yangtze, which is 6,300 km (3,900 mi) long.