Do you read the weather forecast in the newspaper to find out how warm, cloudy, or windy the water is likely to be?

People in the eastern Sahara, in North Africa, don’t have this problem. This is the world’s sunniest place, with an average of over 4,300 hours of sunshine a year!

On an average 45,000 thunderstorms occur somewhere around the world everyday! Hurricanes and tornadoes are types of thunderstorms.

We see lightning before we hear thunder. Lighting is a giant spark of electricity. One flash of lighting has the same power as 50,000,000 batteries! Did you know that lighting strikes somewhere on the earth about 100 times every second?

`Great God! This is an awful place,’ wrote the British explore Caption Scott at the South Pole on 17 January 1912. Antarctica is the coldest and windiest place on earth. It is a vast, ice –covered continent near the South Pole. No one lives here permanently. Some animals like albatross penguins and leopard seal have adapted themselves to life in Antarctica.

The Atacama Desert in South America is the world’s driest place. No rain has fallen here for the last 400 years! On the other hand, the most rain in the world falls in the state of Meghalaya in India.

Worldly wise

Eskimos use refrigerators too! Not to keep food fresh as we do but to prevent it from freezing. If it where left outside, it would freeze!

King Louis XIII of France had a total of five baths in his whole lifetime!

As firm as the Rock of Gibraltar, it is not just a smile. The Rock of Gibraltar is a rocky cliff that lies at the tip of Spain. It is home to the only monkeys in the whole of Europe.

What is the Bermuda triangle?

The Bermuda or Devil’s triangle is part of the North Atlantic Ocean. A number of aircraft and ships have disappeared here.

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night and a brilliant sun shining through the window! In Norway there is daylight even at midnight. That is why it is called the Land of the midnight sun.

The Rosemead in Vienna is one of the largest giant wheels in the world. The highest point of the wheel is nearly 65 meters above the ground.

Manhattan Island is in the heart of New York City. Hundreds of skyscrapers have been built on it. In 1626, Peter Minuit, governor of the Dutch West India Company, bought Manhattan Island from an Indian tribe for beads, trinkets and cloth-all worth $24! Today its value is in billion of dollars.

When we rub an eraser over paper, thin layers of paper are peeled off, and with them, the ink. That is how the ink gets erased.

Ever tired sprinkling salt from a shaker in the monsoon season?

It does not come out, does it?

It rains when the amount of water vapor in the air becomes too much. A bit of this large amount of moisture in the air is absorbed by the salt, making it damp.

There are holes in a fly swat so that when we bring it down, the air rushing out of the holes creates a sucking effect which helps in trapping insects.

Have you ever wondered what cream actually is?