[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

I didn't like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions - the
curtain was up.

Groucho Marx

 

Follow your heart but take your brain with you.

Anonymous

 

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.

Warren Buffett

 

If at first you don't succeed, try management.

Stephen Hawking

 

I don’t want Yes-men around me. I want everyone to tell the truth, even if
it costs them their jobs.

Samuel Goldwyn

 

If there is anyone to whom I owe money, I’m prepared to forget it if they
are.

Errol Flynn

 

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15 Less-Explored Corners of the Earth

 

There aren’t many frontiers left on Earth. Explorers have scaled the world’s
tallest mountains and taken samples from Antarctica’s deepest subglacial
lakes. You can even visit remote locales from your web browser. And yet,
some corners of the Earth still remain essentially uncharted by Western
travelers or scientists (though that certainly doesn’t mean people don’t
live there or know the landscape). Here are some of the coolest,
less-explored places around the globe.

 

1. Vale do Javari // Brazil

This region, home to at least 14 of the Amazon’s uncontacted tribes, is one
of the most isolated places in the world by design. An estimated 2000
Indigenous people live in an area about the size of Austria, and the tribes’
right to live in isolation is protected by a Brazilian government agency
charged with preventing outsiders from visiting Indigenous territories.

 

2. Northern Patagonia // Chile

Home to temperate rainforests, glaciers, fjords, and hot springs, northern
Patagonia is one of Chile’s wildest landscapes. It’s the country’s most
sparsely populated region and has only been accessible by highway since the
‘80s. The Northern Patagonian Ice Field remains one of the largest masses of
ice outside the polar regions, though, like many South American glaciers, it
is shrinking due to climate change.

 

3. Kamchatka // Russia

Russia’s eastern peninsula is home to some of the most spectacular volcanic
activity on Earth, with more than 300 volcanoes, including one that has been
erupting continuously since 1996. It’s also home to the most diverse range
of salmon species and is the most densely populated brown bear habitat in
the world. The region was closed to Westerners until the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991, and even before that, only 400,000 Soviet residents
(all with military clearances) were allowed to live in the territory, which
is around the size of California.

 

4. New Hebrides Trench // Pacific Ocean

Scientists didn’t delve into this submarine trench in the South Pacific
seafloor off the eastern coast of Australia until the end of 2013. When
researchers from the UK and New Zealand sent underwater robots into this
crack in the ocean floor almost 4.5 miles below the surface, they found
prawns and eels totally unlike those found in other deep-sea trenches.

 

5. Arakin Mountains and Northern Triangle Forests Bioregion // India and
Myanmar

Many of the subtropical forests located on the steep slopes of the
easternmost stretch of the Himalayas are virtually untouched by human
activity. They’re important areas for wildlife: Deep within the forests in
Myanmar’s Kachin State lies the largest tiger preserve in the world. It’s
also home to bears, red pandas, and gibbons.

 

6. Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park // Madagascar

Named for the unique, massive limestone formations known as tsingy (Malagasy
for “walking on tiptoes”), this 600-square-mile national park and wilderness
preserve is located on Madagascar’s western edge. The labyrinth of jagged,
needle-shaped limestone was formed by erosion over a period of millions of
years, and the resulting habitat of gorges, canyons, and forests is a
natural fortress. A huge number of species of plants and animals are endemic
to the region, meaning they’re not found anywhere else on Earth, and there
are plenty that haven’t even been discovered yet. While its southern tip is
open to the public, much of the reserve is off-limits to tourists.

 

7. Star Mountains // Papua New Guinea

This isolated region in western Papua New Guinea contains the Hindenburg
Wall, a network of limestone plateaus more than a mile high. The
30-mile-long series of bluffs features nearly undisturbed ecosystems high
above the ground. A 2013 biological survey of the area found 1108 animal and
plant species, almost 100 of which were new to science [PDF].

 

8. Namib Desert // Namibia

The Namib is estimated to be the world’s oldest desert, and it’s one of the
driest, least-populated places in the world. Dunes dominate the southern
part of the harsh desert, and there are few paved roads. At 1256 feet tall,
the giant Dune 7 is believed to be the tallest sand dune in the world.

 

9. Sakha Republic // Russia

The Siberian Sakha Republic (also called Yakutia) covers one-fifth of
Russia, roughly equivalent to the size of India, with a large swath of the
territory located above the Arctic Circle. Its climate is one of the world’s
most extreme: Average high temperatures in January are as low as -32°F, and
most of the land is covered by permafrost. Lichen and moss make it a
favorite habitat of reindeer. Though mining has taken its toll on the
region’s pristine wilderness, parts of it remain untouched, like the Lena
River Delta, a gorgeous refuge and breeding ground for wildlife.

 

10. Northern Greenland

Though Vikings landed in Greenland around 1000 CE, and Indigenous
Greenlanders have lived on its coasts for millennia, we’re still discovering
parts of the far-northern region. Melting glaciers continue to reveal new
islands. Roughly 80 percent of the island is covered by a massive ice sheet
more than a mile thick in places, making interior Greenland largely
inaccessible as well as uninhabitable.

 

11. Mount Namuli // Mozambique

This almost 8000-foot-tall peak is the largest of a series of mountains that
have developed much like separate islands, with very different species
making their homes on the different peaks. In 2014, a group of biologists
and rock climbers teamed up to conduct fieldwork in the region, where rock
climbing is sometimes the only way to get to unexplored habitats.

 

12. Fiordland National Park // New Zealand

New Zealand’s largest national park was shaped by glaciers and contains some
of the country’s oldest rocks. The vast wilderness is home to a unique
diversity of animals, like the takahē, a flightless endemic bird thought to
be extinct for decades until it was rediscovered in the park in 1948, and
the kākāpō, the world’s only flightless, nocturnal parrot. Fiordland’s 2.9
million acres are some of the wildest lands in the Southern Hemisphere.

 

13. Cape Melville // Australia

Walled off by forbidding granite boulders piled hundreds of feet high, Cape
Melville is only around 900 miles from Brisbane, one of Australia’s biggest
cities—but the rainforest habitat might as well be a world away. Virtually
inaccessible except by helicopter, scientists discovered three
new-to-science species of animals in the area in 2013.

 

14. Son Doong Cave // Vietnam

The world’s largest cave contains its own river and even a jungle. At more
than 5.5 miles long, it’s cavernous enough to house a skyscraper. The first
expedition set off to explore this underground world in 2009 before being
stymied by a 200-foot-tall wall of calcite inside. Much of the surrounding
network of over 150 caves near the Laos border remains unsurveyed.

 

15. North Sentinel Island // India

Located in the middle of the Bay of Bengal off the southernmost tip of
Myanmar, North Sentinel Island technically belongs to India, but few
outsiders have dared to make contact with the Sentinelese people. The
inhabitants, who vigorously refuse contact with the wider world, have lived
there for more than 55,000 years. There’s a three-mile exclusion zone
surrounding the island, where somewhere between 50 and 300 people are
believed to live.

 

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Where was the Battle of Bunker Hill actually fought in June 1775?

A: On Breed's hill, southeast of Bunker hill.

 

What was the Allies' password on D-Day?

A: "Mickey Mouse".

 

The Revolutionary War was the first war the U. S. took part in that was
partially financed with what?

A: lottery dollars.

 

What was the last state to return to the Union after the Civil War?

A: Georgia.

 

What did Persian Gulf warrior Norman Schwarzkopf called his young majors in
charge of combat operations?

A:  Jedi Knights.

 

What war was the first to have authorized film coverage?

A: The Boer War (1899-1902).

 

Why did Caedwalla, King of Gwynedd (north Wales), order his soldiers to wear
leeks fastened to  heir helmets when they battled the troops of Kind Edwin
of Northumbria in 632 A.D.?

A: So he could tell his men from the enemy. Caedwalla was victorious, Edwin
was slain, and the leek later became the national emblem of Wales.