Unique Facts About Chocolate

 

5,026 - pounds - AMAZING...the weight of the largest chocolate bar ever made, According to the Guiness World Book of Records. It was produced by Elah-Dufour United Food Companies at Turin, Italy, in March 2000.

52% - the percentage of Americans who choose chocolate over vanilla as their favorite flavor

65% - the percentage of American chocolate eaters prefer milk chocolate.

3.3 - billion lbs. - The amount of chocolate eaten in the U.S. in the year 2000!

230 - the number of calories which the average 1.5- to 1.6-ounce milk chocolate bar has with more than half of those coming from fat.

3.5 - million pounds - the amount of whole milk used every day to make chocolate by U.S. chocolate manufacturers

7 - milligrams - The amount of caffeine in an ounce of milk chocolate - about the same amount contained in a cup of decaffeinated coffee. A cup of full-strength coffee has more than 20 times that much.

96 - degrees - the melting point of cocoa butter which is just below the human body temperature, and why it literally melts in your mouth.

60% - the percentage of Americans said they gave boxed chocolates as a winter holiday gift.

63% - the percentage of Americans who can't resist buying a chocolate treat for themselves when buying chocolates for someone else.

51% - the percentage of Americans who choose what chocolate they eat by the shape of the piece

40% - the percentage of women who regularly crave chocolate

15% - the percentage of men who regularly crave chocolate

$13 billion The amount Americans spend a year on chocolate.

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Unique & Fun Facts About Chocolate - Did you know that...

* the word "Chocolate" comes from the Aztec word "xocolatl", which means "bitter water"

* chocolate is a great natural antidepressant. It contains tryptophan which helps you create serotonin, your body's own antidepressant. Also, the phenylethylamine, found in chocolate has been shown to release serotonin and endorphins- two known chemicals that make us feel happy!

* The seeds of the cacao tree grow not on the end of its branches, but directly off the branches and the trunk.

* Each pod is about the size of a pineapple and holds thirty to fifty seeds - enough to make about seven milk chocolate or two dark chocolate bars.

* Cacao flowers are pollinated by midges, tiny flies that live in the rotting leaves and other debris that fall to the forest floor at the base of the tree. Those midges have the fastest wingbeats in the world: 1,000 ties per second!

* Farmed cacao trees today are endangered by natural threats, such as the witch's broom fungus and other diseases and pests. Along with the rest of the rainforest, their wild counterparts are threatened by lumber companies, which harvest the taller trees that shelter the cacao and help maintain the cacao's fragile ecosystem.

* Cacao seeds are not sweet. They contain the chemicals cafeine and theobromine, which give them a bitter taste.

* Cacao is not related to the coconut palm or the coca plant, the source of cocaine.

* Aztec Indians believed chocolate to be an aphrodisiac

* Chocolate contains high-quality anti oxidants that can protect you from developing cancer and heart disease

* Several studies over the past three decades have failed to find a link between chocolate and acne

* Chocolate is poisonous to dogs (and other domestic animals). The theobromine found in chocolate is a stimulatant, and can be too much for small animals

Fun Facts About Chocolate...cont'd

* Some of the earliest European cocoa-makers were apothecaries seeking medicinal uses of the plant.

* Chocolate contains two stimulants also found in coffee-caffeine and theobromine-but in relatively small amounts. Fifty M&Ms for example, have about as much caffeine as a cup of decaffeinated coffee.

* America produces more chocolate than any other country

* Cadbury's in England produced the first ever bar of chocolate in 1842

* the shelf life for most chocolate is a year

* the haze sometimes found on chocolate is actually a harmless substance known as bloom -- an accumulation of fat crystals on the surface of the chocolate that can form as a result of storage temperature, various cooling methods or the presence of certain types of fat in the chocolate. But fortunately, it usually doesn’t affect the taste of the chocolate

* chocolate really is "The Food Of The Gods" - The cacao tree is a species of the genus theobroma, which translates into "food of the gods"

* It takes 4 cacao seeds to make one ounce of milk chocolate and 12 seeds to make 1 ounce of dark chocolate.

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[Amazing]10 Cave House Unique and Interesting

The cave houses have been found in many areas of the world. This cave used as a residence and places of worship. Not all cave dwelling has been abandoned. In the area of northern China, I'm still serves as home for more than 40 million people.

10. Guyaju, China

Unique houseGuyaju is an ancient cave house, located about 92 kilometers (57 miles) from Beijing. There are no exact records that the place was never found, so no one knows its origin. The house was carved out of steep cliff overlooking Zhangshanying Town. The complex houses have attracted more than 110 stone room, and is home to the largest cave ever discovered in China.

 
9. Matmata, Tunisia

Next Unique house Matmâta or Metmata is a small Berber speaking town in southern Tunisia. Some of the local Berber residents live in traditional underground "troglodyte" structures. The structures typical for the village are created by digging a large pit in the ground. Around the perimeter of this pit artificial caves are then dug to be used as rooms, with some homes comprising multiple pits, connected by trench-like passageways.

8. Bamiyan, Afghanistan

Next Unique house Bamyan (Persian: بامیان Bāmyān), also spelled Bamiyan and Bamian, at an altitude of about 9,200 feet (2,800 m) and with a population of about 61,863, is the largest town in the region of Hazarajat, central Afghanistan and the capital of Bamyan Province. It lies approximately 240 kilometres north-west of Kabul, the national capital. Bamyan was the site of an early Hindu Buddhist monastery from which Bamyan takes its name (Sanskrit varmayana, "coloured"). Many statues of Buddha are carved into the sides of cliffs facing Bamyan city. In 2008, Bamyan was found to be the home of some of the world's oldest oil paintings.

 

  

7. Sassi di Matera

Next Unique house The Sassi at Matera ("stones of Matera") is a cave dwelling located in the old city of Matera. The Sassi derived from prehistoric settlements, and among the first human settlements in Italy. Many of the houses, dug into the tufa rock, is really just a cave, and the streets in some parts of Sassi often located on the roof of the other houses. In 1950, the firm relocated most of the population Sassi into developing a modern city area. However, some people still live in the Sassi just like their ancestors of 9,000 years ago.

  

6. Mesa Verde, United States

Next Unique house Mesa Verde National Park is a U.S. National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado, United States. It was created in 1906 to protect some of the best preserved cliff dwellings in the world. The park occupies 81.4 square miles (211 km2) (211 square kilometers) near the Four Corners and features numerous ruins of homes and villages built by the Ancestral Puebloan people, sometimes called the Anasazi. The Ancestral Puebloans made these stone villages their home in the 13th century, however, the first Ancestral Puebloans settled in Mesa Verde over 600 years before the cliff dwellings were ever built. These first people are known as the Basketmakers and they lived in pithouses clustered into small villages usually built on mesa tops but sometimes in the overhangs of the cliffs. These hunter gatherer people settled and began farming and using the bow and arrow, a weapon that was more efficient and accurate than the atlatl.

5. Bandiagara Escarpment, Mali

Next Unique house The Bandiagara Escarpment is an escarpment in the Dogon country of Mali. The sandstone cliff rises about 500 meters above the lower sandy flats to the south. It has a length of approximately 150 kilometers. The area of the escarpment is inhabited today by the Dogon people. Before the Dogon, the escarpment was inhabited by the Tellem and Toloy. Many structures remain from the Tellem.

The Bandiagara Escarpment was listed in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1989. The Cliffs of Bandiagara are a sandstone chain ranging from south to northeast over 200 km and extending to the Grandamia massif. The end of the massif is marked by the Hombori Tondo, Mali's highest peak at 1,115 meters. Because of its archaeological, ethnological and geological characteristics, the entire site is one of the most imposing in West Africa.

4. Vardzia, Georgia

Next Unique house The cave city of Vardzia (Georgian: ვარძია) is a cave monastery dug into the side of the Erusheli mountain in southern Georgia near Aspindza on the left bank of the Mtkvari River. It was founded by Queen Tamar in 1185. The monastery was constructed as protection from the Mongols. and consisted of over six thousand apartments in a thirteen story complex. The city included a church, a throne room, and a complex irrigation system watering terraced farmlands. The only access to the complex was through some well hidden tunnels near the Mtkvari river.

An earthquake in Samtskhe destroyed approximately two thirds of the city in 1283, exposing the caves to outside view and collapsing the irrigation system. The church was reinforced and an externally visible bell tower added during the reign of Beka Jakheli in the thirteenth century. Persians commanded by Shah Tahmasp I raided the monastery in 1551, capturing all important icons and effectively ending the life of the monastery.

3. Kandovan, Iran

Next Unique house Located in the eastern Iranian province of Azerbaijan, Kandovan is a mysterious village of the thirteenth century. Many houses in Kandovan have done in caves located in the cone-shaped, formed naturally compressed volcanic ash formations that make scenery look like a giant termite colony. Most of the cave houses are 2-4 floors high. In a typical four-story house, ground floor is used as an animal shelter, the next two floors used as living room, and upstairs is used for storage. Material hardens pillar is an efficient insulator and shelter caves remain cool in summer and warm in winter.

2. Ortahisar, Turkey

Next Unique house Ortahisar citadel, built both as a defense and as a settlement, is situated 6km from Ürgüp, on the road to Nevsehir. Typical examples of the area's civilian architecture can be found among the houses skirting the citadel. The sides of the valleys are littered with carved out storage areas used for preserving local products such as apples and potatoes, as well as oranges and lemons brought from the Mediterranean.

Very interesting churches and monasteries can be found in the surrounding valleys. Among these are, Sarica church, Cambazli church, Tavsanli church, Balkan Deresi church and Hallac Dere monastery.

 

1. Uçhisar, Turkey

Last Unique house Uçhisar located at the highest point in the area only 7km from Nevsehir. Places to stay in the cave this rock became the most populated areas Uçhisar. However, because of hazards caused by erosion becomes larger, then on the move.

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Siamese Twins Canada World Medical Surprise!

Conjoined twins Krista and Tatiana have stunned the world's medical experts by seeing through each other's eyes.

The pretty four-year-old twins have two separate bodies but share the same brain.

The girls have a conjoined thalamus, the part of the brain that sends physical sensations and motor functions to the cerebral cortex, allowing them to hear each other's thoughts and see through each other's eyes. 

But it wasn't until their proud mum Felicia Simms saw them playing that she discovered that they could see through each other's eyes.

She said: 'When they are playing, one of the girls will reach over and grab something from her sister's side and know exactly where it is without possibly being able to see it.

'It's absolutely awesome to watch them sometimes because there's no way she can see the toy she is reaching for and it's just incredible.'  The girls also seem to experience each other's emotions.

'If one of the girls is hurt, the other can feel it and if you discipline one the other will also cry.'  

Four-year-old conjoined twins Tatiana and Krista Hogan who have amazed doctors by seeing through each other's eyes. They share the same brain and can hear each other's thoughts  

In the swing: The twins' proud grandparents enjoy the children at the playground  

The girls, from Vernon, British Columbia, Canada,have been receiving constant medical care since they were born. 

Paediatric neurosurgeon Doug Cochrane, who has looked after them from birth, confirmed they can see through each other's eyes.

He said: 'The twins are sharing signals from the other twin's visual field.

'One twin may see what the other twin does, as the brain of one of the girls receives electronic impulses from the retina of the opposite twin.'  

Felicia and her childhood sweetheart, Brendan 26, were unaware their daughters were conjoined until she was five months pregnant.

She underwent an ultrasound scan which diagnosed the twins as having a condition known as Craniopagus.

Felicia said: 'The doctors told me: 'The twins are joined together. Further tests are needed, but at the moment we know they are linked in some way'.

'I felt like someone had hit me with a sledgehammer. It all seemed unreal, surreal really, like I was living in a dream and about to wake up.

'But seeing them on the ultrasound, it suddenly all became very real. Whatever happened though, I knew I was going to give them the best possible shot at life that I could.' 

Caring: The twins' grandfather pushes the girls in a customised pram  

Incredibly rare, only eight cases have ever been documented and just three of those have survived the birth.

When the girls were born by caesarean section they weighed just six-and-a-half pounds.

The girls had separate bodies but were joined just above the ear and Krista was pumping and filtering the blood through her kidneys.

'She is basically keeping both of them alive,' Felicia says.

'Their brain is knitted together so any attempt to split it could be fatal to one or both of them.'

Felicia, who is also mum to Rosa, Christopher, and Shaylee, said she never considered a termination but says she received hate mail over the years since the twins' birth.

'They called the girls freaks,' she explains. 'The nameless letters said that I should never have had them.

'But I didn't pay them much heed. After all if they weren't prepared to give up their names, then why should I care.'  

The family agrees Krista is the bossy one of the pair, while Tatiana is more laid-back and follows Krista wherever she wants to go.

Felicia said: 'Tatiana is definitely the more laid back girl.

'She does what her sister tells her most of the time, Krista is the bossy one. I call her my little bully.'

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[Amazing]Man With Robot Eyes Of Canada

A Canadian citizen dedicates his eyes to the world. With homemade mini camera embedded in his eyes, he would allow the whole world see what he saw. Reported the Telegraph, a man named Rob Spence has made a mini camera, similar to the webcam, during the past two years. However, the prototype has been successfully exhibited in 2009. Even in the same year, the Times Magazine referred to it as 'Finding the Best 2009'. Not surprisingly, then Spence calls himself the 'Eyeborg Guy'.

Artificial eye was fitted with a wireless video camera that is supported by a small battery-powered 3 volts. In it also comes with a wireless transmitter that can help transmit the data, what he saw, into the computer.

"Unlike human eyes, my eyes this can be upgraded on a regular basis," said Spence.

Later, mini cameras will be embedded into the eye, replacing the artificial eye that has been perched at the body Spence. A professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Steve Mann will help Spence. This version of the artificial eye, explained Spence, still has a low resolution display and transmission are still weak. Spence also claimed to have been improving the performance of both the next version.

In addition, Spence also is pushing for the mini wireless camera with LED light, similar to the eye of the robot in the Terminator movies. Spence is known as a filmmaker. He was only able to see with one eye because her right eye damaged by the accident which happened when he was young and started his career in the film world.

Now the 36-year-old man hoped to replace his artificial eye with his artificial eye, and to share what he saw to the whole world, via the Internet.

 

Eyeborg Phase II from eyeborg on Vimeo.

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[LOL]Protect Your Child When Driving

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[LOL]Always Watch Your Children While in Zoo, do not even photographed!

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[LOL]Little Bike Stunt

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[Must Know]iPhone Secret Unique Codes

 

iPhone Secret Unique Codes. What a hack-y afternoon. Here are some more secret iPhone codes for you to enjoy. After realizing that the *3001#12345#* was a familiar Nokia code, I decided to spend some time googling for other phone codes that might work on the iPhone. These (mostly) do. There are more. Feel free to add your own to the comments.

*3001#12345#* and tap Call. Enter Field Mode.

Field mode reveals many of the inner settings of your iPhone, specifically up-to-date network and cell information.

*#06# Displays your IMEI. No need to tap Call.

IMEI is the unique identifier for your cell phone hardware. Together with your SIM information it identifies you to the provider network.

*777# and tap Call. Account balance for prepaid iPhone.

*225# and tap Call. Bill Balance. (Postpaid only)

*646# and tap Call. Check minutes. (Postpaid only)

These three are pretty self explanatory.

*#21# and tap Call. Setting interrogation for call forwards.

Discover the settings for your call forwarding. You'll see whether you have voice, data, fax, sms, sync, async, packet access, and pad access call forwarding enabled or disabled.

*#30# and tap Call. Calling line presentation check.

This displays whether you have enabled or disabled the presentation of the calling line, presumably the number of the party placing the call.

*#76# and tap Call. Check whether the connected line presentation is enabled or not.

State whether the connected line presentation is enabled or disabled. Presumably similar to the calling line presentation.

*#43# and tap Call. Determine if call waiting is enabled.

Displays call waiting status for voice, data, fax, sms, sync data, async data, packet access and pad access. Each item is either enabled or disabled.

*#61# and tap Call. Check the number for unanswered calls.

Show the number for voice call forwarding when a call is unanswered. Also show the options for data, fax, sms, sync, async, packet access and pad access.

*#62# and tap Call. Check the number for call forwarding if no service is available.

Just like the previous, except for no-service rather than no-answer situations.

*#67# and tap Call. Check the number for call forwarding when the iPhone is busy.

And again, but for when the iPhone is busy.

*#33# and tap Call. Check for call control bars.

Check all the usual suspects (voice, data, fax, sms, etc) to see whether barring is enabled or disabled for outgoing.

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[Must Know]BlackBerry Secret Unique Codes

BlackBerry Secret Unique Codes

Decibel meter.
Displays your signal strength in decibels, instead of bars.
Hold "Alt" and press "N", "M", "L", "L" (repeat to reverse the effect).


Address Book file verification.
Checks the data in your Address Book for inconsistencies.
In the Address Book, hold "Alt" and press "V", "A", "L", "D".

Address Book data structure rebuild.
Forces a data structure re-build in the Address Book...
In the Address Book, hold "Alt" and press "R", "B", "L", "D".

View source code.
Displays the source code of a Web page.
In the Browser, hold "Alt" and press "R", "B", "V", "S".

Help Me! menu.
Provides crucial technical information about your device, for when seeking technical support or help in forums...
Hold "Alt" and (left) "shift", then press "H".
IMEI display.
Displays your device's international mobile equipment identity (IMEI - your serial number) on-screen... Also works from all other GSM handsets.
Type "*", "#", "0", "6", "#" on the Home screen.

"Soft" reset.
Performs a "soft" reset of your device; the equivalent of doing a "battery pull" (ie. Removing the battery for a few seconds).
Press-and-hold "Alt", then press-and-hold (left) "shift", then press-and-hold "Del".

Event Log.
Displays event logs of all the system-level events that occur on your device...
Hold "Alt" and press "L", "G", "L", "G".

All of these secrets have been tested on the BlackBerry 8800 and BlackBerry Curve 8300; .

In some cases, you will need to be on the Home screen when you enter these codes...
Key shortcuts:
A or C = phonebook
S = search
F = phone profiles
W or B = browser
H = help
K = locks the keys
L = calendar
V = messages
M = messages folder
R = alarm
T = tasks
U = calculator
I = applications
O = options
P = phone

Some new additions thanks to the contributions in this thread:
T - Top of page (in browser)
B - Bottom of page (in browser)
Space - Page down (in browser)
ALT + Right Shift + Del = hard reset
D - Memo pad
U - Switch between hide/unhide in title bar (in browser)
ALT + NMLL = numbers instead of bars for signal strength

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Ever See People Have Horns?

The horn curves downward and looks like the stalk of a pumpkin, reports the Yangcheng Evening Post. Granny Zhao, 95, of Zhanjiang city, Guangdong province, says it first appeared three years ago. "At first, it was only a mole, but it gradually grew and became like a horn," she said. Zhao says the horn causes her little trouble except to affect her vision slightly: "It causes me no discomfort, but blocks part of my view." But her family are hoping that medical experts can explain the phenomenon.

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