General Sherman is the name of a Giant Sequoia with a height of 275 feet (83.8 metres). As of 2002, the volume of its trunk measured about 1487 cubic meters, making it the largest non-clonal tree by volume. The tree is located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park in the United States, east of Visalia, California. The tree is believed to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old.

Methuselah (estimated germination 2832 BC) is a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine in the White Mountains of California, which was 4,789 years old when sampled in 1957 by Schulman and Harlan. As of 2010, it is the oldest known living non-clonal organism at about 4,841 years.

Coober Pedy is a town in northern South Australia. At the 2006 census its population was 1,916 (1,084 males, 832 females). It is famous for most of the residents living below ground, mostly in old mines refurbished, due to the scorching daytime heat.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy,_South_Australia

Commonwealth Bay is an open bay about 48 km (30 mi) wide at the entrance between Point Alden and Cape Gray in Antarctica. It was discovered in 1912 by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition under Douglas Mawson, who established the main base of the expedition at Cape Denison at the head of the bay. It is listed in both the Guinness Book of World Records and the Eighth Edition National Geographic Atlas as the windiest place on Earth with winds regularly exceeding 150 miles per hour.

Behind the scenes of the dazzling light shows that spectators ooh and ahh at on the Fourth of July, are carefully crafted fireworks. Whether red, white and blue fountains or purple sparklers, each firework is packed with just the right mix of chemicals to create these colorful lights.

Inside each handmade firework are small packets filled with special chemicals, mainly metal salts and metal oxides, which react to produce an array of colors. When heated, the atoms of each element in the mix absorb energy, causing its electrons to rearrange from their lowest energy state to a higher “excited” state. As the electrons plummet back down to their lower energy state, the excess energy gets emitted as light.

Each element releases a different amount of energy, and this energy is what determines the color or wavelength of the light that is emitted.

For instance, when sodium nitrate is heated, electrons in the sodium atoms absorb the energy and get excited. When the electrons come down from the high, they release their energy, about 200 kilojoules per molecule, or the energy of yellow light, according to the website of the University of Wisconsin-Madison chemistry professor Bassam Z. Shakhashiri.

The recipe that creates blue, for example, includes varying amounts of copper chloride compounds, while red comes from strontium and lithium salts.

Just like paints, secondary colors are made by mixing the ingredients of their primary-color relatives. A mixture of copper (blue) and strontium (red) makes purple.

Source: http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/how-do-fireworks-get-their-colors-0904/

In 1783 an Icelandic eruption threw up enough dust to temporarily block out the sun over Europe. Many feared it was the end of the world. The series of eruptions were severe for five months and lasted eight months in total. They propelled 120 million tonnes of toxic gases into the atmosphere. Before the year was out some 23,000 people would die of respiratory failure and related conditions in what was to become the greatest natural disaster to hit modern Britain.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1268405/And-thought-THIS-eruption-nasty-When-Icelandic-volcano-erupted-1783-feared-end-world-.html#ixzz0sDpqqzFG

During World War II the Army Corps of Engineers needed to hide the Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant to protect it from a Japanese air attack. They covered it with camouflage netting and to make it look like a rural subdivision from the air.

Source: http://www.amazingposts.com/2008/08/world-war-ii-lockheed-burbank-aircraft.html

Lizzie Velasquez, a 21-year-old Texan, has a rare disorder that keeps her skeletally thin even though she eats every 15 minutes and as much as 8,000 calories a day. Doctors believe Lizzie Velasquez has neonatal progeroid syndrome, a rare condition that causes fat loss in the face and body and accelerated aging. People with the disorder tend to have triangular faces with a beak-shaped nose, prominent veins and sparse scalp hair.

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-204_162-10003934.html?tag=page