Most people in the world have a fear of one kind or another. Psychologists have categorized as many as 500 phobias. Many people suffer from pathophobia (fear of disease), monophobia (fear of being alone), glossophobia (fear of public speaking), algophobia (fear of pain), taphephobia (fear of being buried alive), and many others.
There are people who suffer from polyphobia, which simply means to have more than one fear.
There are some people that live with vestiophobia (fear of clothes) and gymnophobia (fear of nakedness). Some people have achluophobia (fear of darkness) and photophobia (fear of light).
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Unidentified Flying Object is a light or object in the air. People think that UFOs come from space, from more developed civilizations.
People have reported aircraft, satellites, birds, insects and weather balloons as UFOs. Some UFOs are called flying saucers.
Some scientists say that UFOs are creations of the human mind.
Since primitive humans first went out of their caves and looked at the star-filled night, humankind has been intrigued by the unexplained mysteries of the universe. Early myths and legends tell of mysterious objects in the heavens. Every religion relates visitations from angels, demons, devils, and gods who descended to Earth in ancient times.
Some UFOlogists believed humankind’s gods, angels, devils, and demons were nothing more than alien visitors from some superior civilization on some far planet.
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Coffee is one of the world’s most valuable agricultural crops. The coffee tree is native to Ethiopia. The name coffee also refers to the fruit (beans) of the tree and to the beverage brewed from the beans. In Africa, coffee beans were consumed as food and later made into wine. Coffee beans were introduced to Europe during the spice trade (fifteenth century).
Today, Brazil and Colombia are the world’s leading producers of coffee beans.
Coffee is among what historian Sidney Mintz called the “drug foods” of the Americas and other tropical zones; these foods also include tea, chocolate, tobacco, rum, and sugar.
Coffee grows as a bush with sweet-smelling flowers and fleshy fruit called “coffee cherries.” Within the fruit are two seeds, or beans. There are at least 60 types of coffee plants. But only two kinds, called Arabica and Robusta, are in great demand.
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We spend around a third of our lives sleeping. Sleep is common to mammals, birds and reptiles. Getting enough sleep is an important part of being healthy. It is as important as food for keeping us alive. We save around 100 calories per night by sleeping.
Scientists are not sure exactly why people and other animals sleep. Some of them think that sleep is a way for animals to save energy. Other scientists think that sleep allows the body and mind to rest and recover from the day’s activities.
Sleep helps with consolidation of memory. The brain is bombarded with more information during the day than it is possible to remember, so sleep is used to sort through this information and selectively practice parts that need to be stored.
A lack of sleep increase risk of heart disease.
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Trees and other plants release the oxygen that we breathe; prevent soil erosion; provide food and shelter; and provide material for human use, such as paper, medicine, tools, weapons, and even toys. They are also the dominant plants in the world’s forests, and thus provide critical habitats for the other species which live there.
Trees have great economic significance to humans as a source of food, building materials, and paper. Almond, coconut, cherry, prune, apple, peach, pear, and many other tree species are grown in orchards for their fruits and nuts.
Wood is used as a construction material and to make furniture.
Trees exist as an element in many legends and myths worldwide. They are often used as a symbol for life. The Druids frequently worshipped and practiced their rites in oak groves, whereas some ancient pagans worshipped the trees themselves.
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Children around the world have always played with hoops, by rolling and throwing them or twirling them around the waist and limbs. For adults, hoop twirling has at times been recommended as a weight-loss measure (ancient Greece) and, ironically, denounced as a source of sprains, pains and even heart attacks (14th-century England). These hoops were once made of vines or other plants, wood, or metal.
The conversion of the toy hoop into 20th-century Americana came thanks to Richard Knerr and Arthur “Spud” Melin, founders of the Wham-O Company. In 1957, an Australian visiting California told them offhand that in his home country, children twirled bamboo hoops around their waists in gym class. Knerr and Melin saw how popular such a toy would be; and soon they were winning rave reviews from schoolkids for the hollow plastic prototype they had created.
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Mars is the fourth planet from the center of the solar system. It is named after the ancient Roman god of war. It is often called the ‘Red Planet’. This is because the surface of Mars is orange-red.
Scientists have many reasons for going to Mars: to explore, to learn new things, to find important minerals and search for evidence of past or present life on Mars.
Some scientists think that one day we’ll be able to live on Mars.
Mars has an atmosphere (but it is made mainly of carbon dioxide) and there are signs that there once was water there. Some scientists think that billions years ago there was a huge ocean in the northern half of Mars. There are large, extinct volcanoes dotting its surface, ice caps covering its poles that look very much like Earth’s polar regions.
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