This one’s for you @TrustyBird.
Starlings are the only species of bird known to fly in Murmurations. This flight pattern looks like a giant, shifting blob through the sky. You’ve possibly seen them before. They’re pretty spectacular to watch. But, in case you haven’t, here’s a video on it:
@DungeonMaster, I was looking at this same video a couple of days ago and posted about it!
https://talkingsober.com/t/the-special-world-of-a-a/176274/8?u=sinceiawoke
Thank you! I have seen these in person and they are mesmerizing. I can only wonder, how do they manage to not run into each other. 
No way! I haven’t seen that thread. It’s super cool.
@TrustyBird Great question! One that I didn’t have an answer to, but now I do. Murmurations occur in order to provide protection, warmth and information between groups of Starlings. Falcons have difficulty targeting a single bird in a large flock. Birds also share info on feeding grounds this way. The way that they fly in these patterns comes down to each individual bird keeping track of the 7 fellow birds around them. Each bird follows three simple rules:
(1) move to the center
(2) follow your neighbor
(3) don’t collide
The rules enable each bird to act independently while ensuring the group acts cohesively.
I am (or have been it has been many years) a scuba diver and these do remind me of schools of fish. I get the protection aspect and now I have to wonder if this “how do they not collide” thought is how birds feel seeing us on the freeway in cars. 
I love this thread and I very much appreciate the mindset of looking more deeply in nature at the tiny things to appreciate all the big things.
I’m just blown away by the fact that someone noticed it and thought to themselves, “why do they do that? I’m going to figure it out and how they do it!”. Nature is magnificent.
The Pulpí Geode is widely recognized as the world’s largest Crystal Cave. It was discovered in 1999 in the small town of Pulpí in Spain by the Minerologist Javier Garcia-Guinea. The crystal formations occupy a space of 10.7 cubic metres (380 cu ft), measuring 8 by 1.8 metres (26.2 by 5.9 ft) with an average height of 1.7 metres (5 ft 7 in), and is located at a depth of 50 metres (160 ft) in the Pilar de Jaravía mine.
Here’s another worthy contender for Largest Crystal Cave, The Crystal Cave of Mexico. I believe it fall short of the title, because of the sheer volume of crystals in the Spanish cave and not the size of the actual cave system.
Ancient civilizations of the Americas were highly civilized societies. Ignore the fact that several of them practiced ritual human sacrifice (Aztecs, Mayans). After all, we often see the Roman empire as one of the greatest in the history of the world, yet they practiced blood sport. Human sacrifice was often performed to appease their culture’s Gods to do certain things (Aztecs: Keep the sun moving across the sky). These sacrifices were usually high ranking prisoners of war or similar. The Mayans would also throw their sacrifices into sacred Cenotes, thought to be portals of a sort to the underworld.
The Heart Attack Grill, located in Las Vegas, Nevada (USA, of course) is widely known to be the unhealthiest restaurant in the world. Waiters/Waitresses dress as Doctors and Nurses and give patrons (referred to as Patients) the option to be paddled if they don’t finish their food. The menu is generally themed around items that are exceptionally high in calories and fat. It includes “Single”, “Double”, “Triple”, “Quadruple”, “Quintuple”, “Sextuple”, “Septuple”, and “Octuple Bypass” hamburgers, ranging from 8 to 64 ounces (230 to 1,810 g) of beef with the “Octuple Bypass” burger containing approximately 19,900 kilocalories. The bottomless french fries are made with pure lard and the milkshakes are made with rich butterfat.
Customers over 350 lb (160 kg) in weight eat for free. One of the restaurant’s promotions is a reward for customers who finish a Triple or Quadruple Bypass Burger, after which they are placed in a wheelchair and wheeled out to their vehicle by their “personal nurse”.
Stuff like this is why the rest of the world hates us 
Well… You Muricans have great entertainment value. The stuff you come up with makes the rest of sigh “only in America” 
Beautiful!
The venom of the deathstalker scorpion costs $39 million dollars a gallon, making it the most expensive liquid on Earth.
Why would i want to buy the deathstalker scorpions venom???
You wouldn’t per say. But, one component of Death Stalker Scorpion venom is used in the treatment of some brain tumors. It’s difficult to obtain, and a hazardous substance to handle. That’s why it’s so expensive.
Thanks! They’re mind blowing to me as well! Been sick over the past week, so I haven’t been up to checking in with the forum, but I’m back now.
The lowest temperature that is theoretically possible, at which the motion of particles that constitutes heat would be minimal, is zero on the Kelvin scale, equivalent to –273.15°C or –459.67°F. To reach zero kelvins, you would require an infinite amount of work. And even if you could get there, quantum mechanics dictates that the atoms and molecules would still have some irreducible motion. Because of this Zero Kelvin is more of a theory than something that’s actually achievable with our current scientific limits. According to quantum mechanics, it’s possible that it is, in fact, not achievable at all.
Conversely, you might wonder, what’s the highest possible temperature? That’s not quite measurable and is a total theory. It’s called the Planck temperature , after the German physicist Max Planck, and it equals about 100 million million million million million degrees C, or 10^32 Kelvin. That’s friggin’ hot.
You lost me. But it did sound very impressive 
