World University Rankings – 2012

Rank	School		AR	ER	CPP	Score
1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) United States		95.5	90	92	92.8
2	Stanford University United States		91.5	87.7	96.6	91.9
3	Carnegie Mellon University United States		100	79.1	90.8	91
4	University of California, Berkeley (UCB) United States		90.2	81.5	95.3	89.1
5	Harvard University United States		85.5	93.7	87.5	88.6
6	University of Oxford United Kingdom		85.2	92.5	88.1	88.3
7	University of Cambridge United Kingdom		83.3	91.5	84.3	86.1
8	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) Switzerland		82.1	86.4	89.2	85.5
9	National University of Singapore (NUS) Singapore		80	94.7	81.5	84.9
10	Princeton University United States		78	81.4	93.5	83.7
11	The University of Tokyo Japan		83.8	100	63.5	82.6
12	University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) United States		80.5	78	89.2	82.4
13	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong		74.7	84.9	86.9	81.4
14	Cornell University United States		76.7	74.9	93.6	81.2
15	University of Toronto Canada		80.2	73	88.5	80.5
16	Columbia University United States		70	81.4	92.4	80.1
17	Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Switzerland		73.9	79.5	87.5	79.7
18	Imperial College London United Kingdom		75.6	80.6	83.5	79.5
18	University of Washington United States		75.6	68.8	95.4	79.5
20	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign United States		78	69.2	91.3	79.4
21	The University of Melbourne Australia		70.4	86.7	81.8	78.7
21	University of Hong Kong Hong Kong		70.1	87.2	81.7	78.7
23	University of Chicago United States		67.3	80	92.4	78.6
23	University of Texas at Austin United States		77.3	72.4	86.4	78.6
25	Yale University United States		69.7	81.4	86.9	78.4

Piranha

Notorious for their sharp teeth and voracious appetites, piranhas inhabit several of the major river basins in South America. These omnivorous fish are known for their taste for meat, although attacks on human beings are quite rare, despite breathless accounts from early explorers.

In a historic visit to Brazil, Theodore Roosevelt famously saw a group of piranhas shredding pieces of a cow carcass in seconds. His dramatic account would color popular imagination for years, even though it was based on a manipulated spectacle in which fishermen blocked off a group of the fish and starved them beforehand.

Still, piranhas are important scavengers and predators in their native rivers, and they often resort to cannibalism if food gets scarce. It’s true that local fishermen occasionally have scars from close encounters with them.

It’s unknown how many species of piranhas exist, with estimates ranging from 30 to 60. —Brian Clark Howard

 

 

 

15 of the Largest Animals in the World

Our world is full of creatures big and small, short and tall. Below the Sifter looks at 15 of the largest animals in the world, classified by various categories such as mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians etc. There’s an incredibly detailed list of some of the world’s largest organisms (including plants, fungi, bacteria, etc.) on Wikipedia, check it out if you enjoy lists as much as we do For now, enjoy these fifteen fascinating animals.

The Largest Animal Ever: The Blue Whale

The blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) is a marine mammal belonging to the suborder of baleen whales. At 30 metres (98 ft) in length and 180 metric tons (200 short tons) or more in weight, it is the largest known animal to have ever existed. The Blue Whale’s tongue weighs around 2.7 metric tons (5,952 pounds), about the size of an average Asian Elephant and its heart weighs about 600 kg (1,300 lb) and is the largest known in any animal. Not only is the heart similar size to a mini-cooper car but also comparable in weight.

The Blue Whale is thought to feed almost exclusively on small, shrimp-like creatures called Krill. During the summer feeding season the Blue Whale gorges itself, consuming an astounding 3.6 metric tons (7,900 pounds) or more each day. This means it may eat up to 40 million krill a day with a daily calorie requirement of an adult Blue Whale in the region of 1.5 million. [Source]

The Heaviest Land Animal in the World: The African Bush Elephant

The African Bush Elephant is the largest living terrestrial (land) animal, with males reaching 6 to 7.5 metres (19.7 to 24.6 ft) in length, 3.3 metres (10.8 ft) in height at the shoulder, and weighing 6 t (13,000 lb). Females are much smaller, reaching 5.4 to 6.9 metres (17.7 to 22.6 ft) in length, 2.7 metres (8.9 ft) in height at the shoulder, and weighing 3 t (6,600 lb). The adult African bush elephant generally has no natural predators due to its great size, but the calves (especially the newborn) are vulnerable to lion and crocodile attacks, and (rarely) to leopard and hyena attacks. [Source]

The Tallest Land Animal in the World: The Giraffe

Photograph by Luca Galuzzi – http://www.galuzzi.it

The giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) is an African even-toed ungulate mammal and the tallest living terrestrial animal in the world. It stands 5–6 m (16–20 ft) tall and has an average weight of 1,600 kg (3,500 lb) for males and 830 kg (1,800 lb) for females. The giraffe has an extremely elongated neck, which can be over 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in length, accounting for nearly half of the animal’s vertical height. The long neck results from a disproportionate lengthening of the cervical vertebrae, not from the addition of more vertebrae. [Source]

The Largest Carnivora in the World: The Southern Elephant Seal

Photograph by DAVID SHACKELFORD

The Southern elephant seal is the largest carnivore living today. This seals’ size shows extreme sexual dimorphism, possibly the largest of any mammal, with the males typically five to six times heavier than the females. While the females average 400 to 900 kilograms (880 to 2,000 lb) and 2.6 to 3 meters (8.5 to 9.8 ft) long, the bulls average 2,200 to 4,000 kilograms (4,900 to 8,800 lb) and 4.5 to 5.8 meters (15 to 19 ft) long. The record-sized bull, shot in Possession Bay, South Georgia on February 28, 1913, measured 6.85 meters (22.5 ft) long and was estimated to weigh 5,000 kilograms (11,000 lb).

Southern elephant seals dive repeatedly, each time for more than twenty minutes, to hunt their prey—squid and fish— at depths of 400 to 1,000 meters (1,300 to 3,300 ft). The documented diving records for the seals are nearly two hours for the duration, and more than 1,400 meters (4,600 ft) in depth. [Source]

The diverse order Carnivora includes over 280 species of placental mammals. Its members are formally referred to as carnivorans, while the word “carnivore” (often popularly applied to members of this group) can refer to any meat-eating organism. Carnivorans are the most diverse in size of any mammalian order, ranging from the least weasel (Mustela nivalis), at as little as 25 grams (0.88 oz) and 11 centimetres (4.3 in), to the polar bear and southern elephant seal. [Source]

The Largest Land Carnivores in the World: The Polar Bear and Kodiak Bear

The largest living land carnivores are the Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) and the kodiak bear, a Brown Bear (Ursus arctos) subspecies. Since they have similar body sizes, it is not clear which is definitively larger. In both species, shoulder height has been measured at more than 1.6 m (5.2 ft) and total length at as much as to 3.05 m (10.0 ft). The heaviest polar and brown bear weights recorded were respectively 1,003 kg (2,210 lb) and 1,135 kg (2,500 lb). [Source]

The Largest Reptile in the World: The Saltwater Crocodile

The saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), is the largest of all living reptiles. It is found in suitable habitats from Northern Australia through Southeast Asia to the eastern coast of India. An adult male saltwater crocodile’s weight is 409 to 1,000 kilograms (900–2,200 lb) and length is normally 4.1 to 5.5 metres (13–18 ft). However, mature males can exceed 6 metres (20 ft) and weigh more than 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb) and this species is the only extant crocodilian to regularly reach or exceed 4.8 metres (16 ft). The saltwater crocodile is an opportunistic apex predator capable of taking nearly any animal that enters its territory, either in the water or on dry land. [Source]

The Largest Amphibian in the World: The Chinese Giant Salamander

The Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) is the largest salamander in the world, reaching a length of 180 cm (6 ft), although it rarely – if ever – reaches that size today. Endemic to rocky mountain streams and lakes in China, it is considered critically endangered due to habitat loss, pollution, and over-collecting, as it is considered a delicacy and used in traditional Chinese medicine. [Source]

The Largest Rabbit/Hare in the World: The Flemish Giant

The Flemish Giant is an old breed of domesticated rabbits, originating from the Flemish region. They have been bred as early as the 16th century around the city of Ghent, Belgium. The rabbits can weigh up to 12.7 kg (28 pounds). [Source]

The Largest Bats in the World: The Giant golden-crowned flying fox

Golden Crowned Flying Fox | Photograph by Latorilla

Spectacled Flying Fox | Photograph by Mnolf

The largest bat species is the Giant golden-crowned flying fox (Acerodon jubatus), an endangered fruit bat from the rainforests of the Philippines that is part of the megabat family. The maximum size is believed to approach 1.5 kg (3.3 lb), 55 cm (22 in) long, and the wingspan may be almost 1.8 m (5.9 ft). The Large Flying Fox (Pteropus vampyrus) is smaller in body mass and length, but it has been known to exceed the Golden-crowned species in wingspan. Specimens have been verified to 1.83 m (6.0 ft) and possibly up to 2 m (6.6 ft) in wingspan. [Source]

The Largest Rodent in the World: The Capybara

Photograph by Jsanabriag

The largest living rodent is the capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris), native to most of the tropical and temperate parts of South America east of the Andes, always near water. Full-grown capybaras can reach 1.5 m (4.9 ft) long and 0.9 m (3.0 ft) tall at the shoulder and a maximum weight of 105.4 kg (232 lb). It is a highly social species and can be found in groups as large as 100 individuals, but usually live in groups of 10–20 individuals. [Source]

The Largest Bony Fish in the World: The Ocean Sunfish

Photograph by Per-Ola-Norman

Photograph by Library of Congress

Osteichthyes, also called bony fish, are a taxonomic group of fish that have bony, as opposed to cartilaginous, skeletons. The vast majority of fish are osteichthyes, which is an extremely diverse and abundant group consisting of over 29,000 species. It is the largest class of vertebrates in existence today.

The largest living bony fish is the widely distributed ocean sunfish (Mola mola). It resembles a fish head with a tail, and its main body is flattened laterally. The mature ocean sunfish has an average length of 1.8 m (5.9 ft), a fin-to-fin length of 2.5 m (8.2 ft) and an average weight of 1,000 kg (2,200 lb), although individuals up to 3.3 m (10.8 ft) in length 4.2 m (14 ft) across the fins and weighing up to 2,300 kg (5,100 lb) have been observed. [Source]

The Largest Lizard/Snake in the World: The Green Anaconda

Photograph via The Vertebrate Journal

The most massive living member of this giant reptilian order is the Green Anaconda (Eunectes murinus) of the neotropical riverways. The maximum verified size is 7.5 m (25 ft) and 250 kg (550 lb), although rumors of larger anacondas persist. The Reticulated Python (Python reticulatus) of Southeast Asia is longer but more slender, and has been reported to measure as much as 9.7 m (32 ft) in length. [Source]

The Largest Bird in the World: The Ostrich

Photograph by Math Knight

The largest living bird is the ostrich (Struthio camelus), from the plains of Africa and Arabia. A large male ostrich can reach a height of 2.8 m (9.2 ft), weighing over 156 kg (345 lb). Eggs laid by the Ostrich can weigh 1.4 kg (3 lb) and are the largest eggs in the world today. They can also run at maximum speeds of about 97.5 km/h (60.6 mph), making it both the fastest bird on land and the fastest two-legged animal in the world. [Source]

The Heaviest Flying Bird in the World: The Dalmatian Pelican

Photograph by Doug Janson

The Dalmatian Pelican (Pelecanus crispus) is a member of the pelican family. It breeds from southeastern Europe to India and China in swamps and shallow lakes. This is the largest of the pelicans, averaging 160–180 cm (63-70 inches) in length, 11–15 kg (24-33 lbs) in weight and just over 3 m (10 ft) in wingspan. With a mean weight of 11.5 kg (25 lb), it is the world’s heaviest flying bird species on average, although large male bustards and swans can exceed the pelican in maximum weight. [Source]

The Largest Arthropod in the World: The Japanese spider crab

The Japanese spider crab is a species of marine crab that lives in the waters around Japan. It has the largest leg span of any arthropod, reaching up to 3.8 metres (12 ft) and weighing up to 41 pounds (19 kg). In its natural habitat, the Japanese spider crab feeds on shellfish and animal carcasses and may live for up to 100 years. [Source]

If you enjoyed this post, the Sifter highly recommends:

Top 10 Facts of the World’s Largest Land Animal [20 pics]

 

 

 

The “New” Seven Wonders of the World

 

On July 7, 2007 (7-7-07) an organization announced a “new” set of the Seven Wonders of the World based on online voting from around the world…

Chichen Itza, Mexico – Mayan City
Christ Redeemer, Brazil – Large Statue
The Great Wall, China
Machu Picchu, Peru
Petra, Jordan – Ancient City
The Roman Colosseum, Italy
The Taj Mahal, India

 

 

 

 

Natural Wonders of the World

In 1997, CNN announced a listing of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World…

Grand Canyon
The Great Barrier Reef
The Harbor at Rio de Janeiro
Mt. Everest
Northern Lights
Paricutin Volcano
Victoria Falls

The Seven Wonders of the Modern World

Channel Tunnel
CN Tower
Empire State Building
Golden Gate Bridge
Itaipu Dam
Netherlands North Sea Protection Works
Panama Canal

The Seven Wonders of the World

The Seven Wonders of the World has historically been a listing of seven sites known to the Ancient Greeks as the most notable locales in their known world.

Since then, many have developed lists of the “modern” Seven Wonders of the World. The only list that really stands out and has stood the test of time for more than a decade is the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, developed by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The Original Seven Wonders of the World

The Colossus of Rhodes
The Great Pyramid of Giza
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
The Lighthouse of Alexandria
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

How Instagram became the social network for tweens

Michelle Meyers’s views.

Well-intentioned parents who’ve kept their tweens off Facebook are catching on to the workaround: kids are turning to Instagram, the photo-sharing app that may as well be a social network.

I just learned that my 12-year-old daughter is an app scofflaw. So, in fact, are the hordes of her fellow tween-agers — kept off Facebook by their well-intended parents — who have turned to Instagram as a seemingly innocuous social-network workaround.

As it turns out, just like Facebook, you technically have to be 13 to have an Instagram account. And, just like Facebook, Instagram is more or less a social network, dark sides included. Kids post photos, their followers comment… and then those not invited to said birthday party or shopping excursion get hurt feelings.

From my daughter’s Instagram page.

Many of us adults discovered Instagram as a nifty photo-sharing app that’s lets you spruce up your photos with cool filters. But it has all the functionality of a social network, which Instagram founder Kevin Systrom says was by design.

“We are delighted that there is such a social component to using the app,” he said, “but we target and intend for our user base to be 13 or older and because of legal restrictions cannot have anyone under that age using the app.”

It’s not easy proving the popularity of Instagram among the tween set with hard data, mostly because, as Systrom acknowledged, the service doesn’t “currently disclose demographic data.” It’s unclear whether this might change now that Facebook has officially closed its purchase of Instagram.

Asked specifically if he’s heard about the growing numbers of tweens on Instagram and Systrom could only offer that the service has grown in just about every demographic, from “the elderly side” to the 13-plus group. “The proliferation of iPodTouches and iPads has also helped growth outside of people that own iPhones,” he said.

But even if Instagram did release demographic data, it likely wouldn’t reflect reality. Users like my daughter and her 100 young followers have managed to get around the strict Instagram terms requiring users to be 13 or older to use the service. If their iTunes accounts are set up correctly, tweens shouldn’t be allowed to download the app, Systrom said. My daughter’s account, for example, must still be tied to my account — she’s had an iPod Touch for years and still goes through me before buying apps. (So yes, I’m actually just as much the app scofflaw.)

Plus, upon signup, Instagram gives you a birthday picker that doesn’t let you chose an age younger than 13, Systrom explained. (My daughter claims no memory of this part of the Instagram sign-up process, so it’s unclear how she bypassed it.) Systrom kindly offered to close my daughter’s Instagram account, as the service does with any account it learns is in violation of terms. But would mean the end of my already shaky cool-mom status, and after all, she didn’t sign on to be the daughter of a journalist.

Hard data My daughter’s experience aside, a few studies help us connect the dots in support of this meteoric rise in Instagram’s popularity among tweens. According to Nielsen, for example, Instagram is the top photography site among teens ages 12 to 17, with 1 million teens visiting the site during July. Nielsen doesn’t categorize Instagram as a social network. While Flickr was top photo site for the overall population in July, Instagram was the favorite among teens, Nielsen found.

Add to that an earlier Nielsen study on growing popularity of Facebook and social networks in general among teenagers, and yet another on how teens tripled their mobile data consumptionbetween December 2010 and December 2011, and the picture becomes clear.

Also, a Pew report presented over the summer about teenage online behavior found that 45 percent of online 12-year-olds use social-network sites and that the number doubles to 82 percent for 13-year-old Internet users. The most popular activity for teens on social networks is posting photos and videos, the study found

Parents caught off-guard We parents have been advised over and over again by educators that our tween-age kids are just too young for Facebook. Most are just not mature enough to gauge what’s appropriate for posting and to know how to respond to cyberbullying or contacts from strangers or spammers.

But with Instagram our guards were down. We never really imagined how it would be used. When my daughter asked permission to download the app, I was frankly excited that she was showing interest in photography. I love using the app and was unaware of the age restriction.

A recent Facebook-like post on my daughter’s Instagram. She posted a photo of a note she wrote on her iPod Touch.

I had heard stories of kids on Instagram who had lost friends over not being included in activities posted to the site. But I only really caught onto Instagram’s ubiquity as a tweenage social network the day before school started this year, when my daughter’s middle school sent out class schedules to individual families using its password protected Web site. Within an hour of viewing the class schedule, my daughter had scribbled out a chart of who was in each of her classes. When I asked how she had figured it all out, she responded, “Everybody posted their schedules on Instagram.”

That started me looking through her account. In another Facebook-like status update, she posted a photo of a note she wrote on her iPod Touch that read, “So glad it’s a 3 day weekend!!!” That got 31 likes.

Concerns over Instagram have spurred articles like this one in the Washington Post called “What parents need to know about Instagram” and an even more informative one it links to from Yoursphere for Parents called, “Is it okay for kids? What parents need to know.”

There, parents have chimed in about their initial ignorance about how Instagram is being used by tweens.

“My fifth-grade daughter and friends purchased the Instagram app with iTunes gift cards. Her friends thought it was an app to take and share pics and at first didn’t realize they could post comments,” posted a commenter named SAM. “I had no idea that it was a pseudo-Facebook app. (We are waiting until she is 13 to get a FB account.) I did not know that this app would have her following and being followed by hundreds of people she didn’t know…and posting comments…it was alarming.”

Another commenter, Laura, says she’ll be closing her 12-year-old daughter’s Instagram account, which has turned into a “nightmare.”

“She is not allowed to have a Facebook account until high school to avoid bullying issues, but due to my lack of knowledge (I thought Instagram was basically a glorified camera), I allowed her to have an account,” Laura wrote. “In the last week, she has been indirectly contacted by what appears to be a predatorial pedophile posing as a radio contest to which girls send their photos. And she also experienced the middle school drama that I was trying to avoid by the lack of a Facebook account.”

Tweens, of course, are merely following the leads of teenagers, and, for that matter, the general population. An Experian Hitwise survey just found that Instagram increased its market share in the U.S. by 17,319 percent between July 2011 and July 2012.

But a friend of mine just offered up a theory on Instagram’s youth popularity based on the behavior of his 14-year-old daughter and her friends who are also crazy for Instagram. She’s been on Facebook since she was 12 and her parents have always warned her that with other parents (and grandparents) on the social network, she needed to keep her act very clean.

However, her grandparents haven’t yet caught wind of Instagram, so she and her friends can be a little freer with what they post and comment on there.

Of course, it may just be a matter of time before older folks join the party. As Instagram founder Systrom noted, the service’s numbers are growing on “the elderly side” as well.

Reality Sets In for Nokia and RIM After Patent-Boost Fades

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) won a decisive patent case victory over Samsung, and it is no surprise that Apple is asking that at least eight Samsung products not be allowed to be sold in the United States. While the news was good for Apple, the news briefly acted to bolster both Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) and Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) share prices. Apple hit a new high on Monday, but the percentage gains out of the chute were far larger at the start of the week for Nokia and RIM.

That was then.

Nokia and RIM are still in trouble, and no Samsung disruption is going to bring immediate salvation to their product offerings in the immediate future. Even if the lack of non-Apple competition does help, the vote so far is that the help will not be enough to stave off this bloodletting trend of Nokia and RIM.

All you need to do is look at the share prices of each and the performance this week. Both stocks resembled classic “gap and crap” patterns, where the gap up was met by immediate selling.

RIM shares closed at $6.94 on Friday, but they gapped up more than 5% to $7.29 on Monday morning on the Apple-Samsung news. The high was also $7.29, and shares then slid to $7.07 at the close on Monday and then to $7.02 for Tuesday’s close. After a 1.3% drop so far on Wednesday, the price of $6.93 is now a penny less than where RIM’s shares were on a prepatent news basis.

The Finns are not doing much better. Nokia shares closed at $3.28 on Friday, gapped up 7.4% to $3.31 at the Monday open with a high of $3.39 that day. Monday’s close of $3.25 was under the opening price and shares closed at $3.03 on Tuesday. Now shares are down by 5% at $2.85.

Nokia and RIM might as well tell their employees that they will only get coal in their stockings this holiday season. The post-news trading reaction is only just further confirming that what was good for Apple does not really mean that anything is better for Nokia or for RIM.

JON C. OGG

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Active Trader, Consumer Electronics, Technology, Technology Companies, Telecom & Wireless

U.S. judge: HTC patents likely valid in Apple suit

Warning bells in Cupertino? Apple may struggle to invalidate HTC’s patents in a legal tussle with the ailing smartphone maker, pointing the way toward a possible U.S. ban of iPhone and iPad devices.

A U.S. trade judge has hinted that Apple may struggle to invalidate patents owned by HTC, which could potentially lead to an import ban on the latest iPad and the forthcoming iPhone.

According to Bloomberg, U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) Judge Thomas Pender said in Washington on Thursday that “clear and convincing means something to me,” speaking about the legalities of determining whether a patent should or shouldn’t have been issued.

“I have to be pretty darn certain a U.S. patent is invalid,” Pender added.

HTC accused Apple of infringing two patents relating to 4G technologies. While the current iPad (aka the iPad 3) already boasts 4G connectivity — available only in North America, which led to Apple being chastised by U.K. and Australian regulators for dubbing the device as “4G” when it could not connect to local networks in their regions — the forthcoming iPhone is thought to include the next-generation network standard. Apple is widely expected to announce the iPhone 5 at a press event this Wednesday.

If Apple is found to have infringed HTC’s patents, that could lead to a U.S. import ban on the iPad and iPhone 5, or give HTC enough ammunition to push for a settlement with Apple, which has its own patent claims filed against the Taiwanese smartphone maker.

The two companies have been locked in legal tussles for the last three years. After Apple sued HTC over iPhone patents in March 2010, the ITC’s initial ruling came down in Apple’s favor, stating that HTC had violated two of Apple’s patents.

In 2011, HTC fired off its own patent lawsuit against the iPhone and iPad maker over Wi-Fi-related patents. HTC sought an import banof Apple’s line of Macs, iPads, iPods, iPhones, and other Wi-Fi enabled devices.

Earlier this year, HTC scored a victory over Apple at the U.K. High Court, after a judge ruled that three of the four Apple-owned patents in Europe were invalid. HTC was not found to have infringed the fourth patent, which related to photo management software.

While HTC is not the healthiest of companies in the smartphone space, the firm still holds a 6 percent stake in the U.S. smartphone market; partially thanks to Research in Motion’s dwindling down the top five smartphone makers, as the BlackBerry maker continues its struggle for relevance and market share in an already burgeoning smartphone sector.