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POPSLinguistic superpowers The book Limits of Language by Swedish linguist Mikael Parkvall is a sort of languages-only Guinness Book of Records, listing everything that’s large, small and otherwise interesting about the manifold manners of human speech and associated forms of communication. One item deals with the world’s most linguistically diverse countries, and is illustrated with this map, of the world’s ‘linguistic superpowers’.
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POPSSex, lies and some existential questions.. :-) So many orchids treat their pollinators so nastily, with false promises of food and sex or the occasional dunking of insect visitors into bucket-shaped petals full of liquid, that naturalists have puzzled over the relationship for more than a century. Darwin was so consumed by the odd interactions that after “The Origin of Species,” his next book was an entire volume on the subject, “The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects.”
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POPSOur Earth as Art Welcome to the Earth as Art Gallery.Here you can view our planet through the beautiful images taken by the Landsat-7 satellite - and most recently, the Terra Satellite's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER). This gallery of images uses the visceral avenue of art to convey the thrilling perspective of the Earth that satellites provide to the viewer.
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POPS20 Things You Didn't Know About Sex
6 Barbary macaques have a distinctive way to get their mates to make a sperm donation: yelling. If the female does not shout, the male almost never climaxes. 7 How do we know this? German primatologist Dana Pfefferle watched a group of macaques, counting the females’ yells and the males’ pelvic thrusts. She says this work is “quite weird, but it’s science.” 8 Here in the US of A, that kind of stuff ends up on YouTube. 9 Because Barry White sounds terrible underwater: Fish can produce a variety of noises with their bones, teeth, and gas bladders. Grant Gilmore of Estuarine Coastal and Ocean Science Inc. says that male fish probably use some of these sounds to woo females. 10 The spiny anteater, an egg-laying mammal native to Australia and New Guinea, has a penis with four heads, but only two fit into the female at once. 11 The tiny male paper nautilus, an octopus, impregnates the much larger female by shooting his penis (a modified tentacle) into her—and leaving it there.
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POPSTiger Pictures Siberian tigers are among the world's most endangered species. They are estimated to number less than 500 in the wild. In about 100 years only a dozen white tigers have been seen in the wild in India. Other Photos at the website include: A 26-day-old endangered Sumatran tiger cub cuddles up to a 5-month-old female orangutan One of Australia's only two 'tigons,' a man-made hybrid created by crossing a male tiger with a lioness, licks its lips at the National Zoo. Bearing the stripes of a tiger and the physique of a lioness, tigons are usually infertile. An Indian Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris) walks in a pool at a zoo
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POPSWorld wants Obama as president: poll Will Americans choose to lead the world, or will they once again squander the goodwill that the world would love to heap on the USA. What will they do? The countries most optimistic that an Obama presidency would improve relations were America's NATO allies, including Australia (62 per cent).
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POPSBoy Allegedly Buried In Horror Bullying Episode The alleged ringleader's mother told reporters her son was a sweet child and that she had lost faith in the justice system. A sweet boy?? Geeeez!! Her statement is almost as shocking as the incident itself! One can only imagine the immense fear and terror the poor victim must have felt. It's simply shocking and so hard to fathom, that kids so young can do something so heinous and horrific. Poor boy...I hope he'll be okay. :(
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