"Nature is God's Will and is its expression in and through the contingent world" - Baha'u'llah, the Prophet-Founder of the Baha’i Faith

February 28, 2017

Does Milky Way galaxy orbit anything?

Our galaxy does indeed! The Milky Way is one of two large galaxies that make up what’s called the Local Group, which contains some fifty-odd galaxies. The other large galaxy involved is Andromeda, our closest galactic neighbor; our galaxy and Andromeda are slowly orbiting each other. The rest of the Local Group are mostly small things, like the Large or Small Magellanic Clouds, which are gravitationally tied to either the Milky Way or Andromeda, and orbit the larger galaxy to which they’re bound. Andromeda weighs in somewhere between 700 billion solar masses and a trillion solar masses. This is approximately the same mass as our own Milky Way, which is also usually considered to have about a trillion solar masses worth of stuff hanging around.

February 20, 2017

Atom

Atom is the tiny basic building block of matter. All the material on Earth is composed of various combinations of atoms. Atoms are the smallest particles of a chemical element that still exhibit all the chemical properties unique to that element. A row of 100 million atoms would be only about a centimeter long.  Understanding atoms is key to understanding the physical world. More than 100 different elements exist in nature, each with its own unique atomic makeup. The atoms of these elements react with one another and combine in different ways to form a virtually unlimited number of chemical compounds. When two or more atoms combine, they form a molecule. For example, two atoms of the element hydrogen (abbreviated H) combine with one atom of the element oxygen (O) to form a molecule of water (H20). 
(Encarta Encyclopedia)

February 9, 2017

Octopus - 35% of its neurons are in the brain and 65% in its arms

In number of neurons, octopuses and their relatives far exceed other invertebrates and put rodents, frogs, and many other vertebrates to shame.

Pond snails have 0.01 million neurons; mouse 80 million; octopus 500 million; and human has 86,000 million neurons.

An octopus’s nervous system processes information not just in the brain but also throughout all eight arms and the suckers that line them.

The brain of octopus contains one-third of its neurons. It handles higher executive functions, such as decision-making, learning, and memory, as well as coordination of complex movements. Most of an octopus’s neurons are in its arms. Each has interlinked control centers, or ganglia, that relay information to the brain and also independently control movements such as extending or twisting an arm. 
(National Geographic magazine)

February 4, 2017

Evolution of man

In the world of existence man has traversed successive degrees until he has attained the human kingdom. In each degree of his progression he has developed capacity for advancement to the next station and condition. While in the kingdom of the mineral he was attaining the capacity for promotion into the degree of the vegetable. In the kingdom of the vegetable he underwent preparation for the world of the animal, and from thence he has come onward to the human degree, or kingdom. Throughout this journey of progression he has ever and always been potentially man. 
- ‘Abdu'l-Baha  (From a talk, 6 July 1912, New York; ‘The Promulgation of Universal Peace’)