The Crude World

John D. Rockefeller, the king of the crude industry, revolutionised oil industry like no other person did. Before the revolution of oil, steel industry and railroads were shaping the American economy. When Colonel Edwin Drake drilled the first successful oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859, few had any idea of how petroleum would change …

The Wheel

The wheel: where would we be without this rotating wonder? The wheel allows us to perform a huge number of tasks, everything from using shopping carts to rumbling your sports car around the race course, from children’s toys to huge aeroplanes everything employs wheels. Wheels have made it easier for all of us to travel. …

The Inventions That Shaped Our World: Metals

Metals: The majority of the elements in the periodic table are metals. Normally metal follows following properties: They are good conductors of heat and electricity. They have a high melting point. They have a shiny appearance. They can be formed easily. Most metals are solid at room temperature. Metals exhibit these properties due to its …

The Inventions That Shaped Our World: Agriculture

The invention of agriculture depicts the story of domestication of plants and animals and the development of techniques used for raising them productively. The agriculture is all about the development of producing food, fibres, fuels and domestication of animals. Agriculture helped humans to develop their colonies and allowing them to stay at one location for …

The Inventions That Shaped Our World: Fire

Although ‘Rapid Oxidation’ or ‘Fire’ is a discovery, not an invention it is one of the few things that really shaped the world. Humans are the only species on earth that can control fire. So even if we hadn’t invented the fire we surely reinvented it. Fire is the one the most important stepping stone …

Human Evolution- II

This blog post is little different than others. The process of human evolution is very hard to explain in detail in two blog posts so I’ve tried to summarise only important steps in evolution, their timelines along with their physical characteristics. The following tables are sorted according to the stages in human evolution. Hope you …

Human Evolution- I

The dinosaurs are long dead and the planet is peaceful. In this new world, our mammal ancestors are evolving. There is an entirely new generation of mammals which are developed. One of them is  Darwinius Masillae or Ida. She looks nothing like us but fossil evidence from our own time tells us these creatures could …

The Mass Extinctions- II

The Triassic- Jurassic Mass Extinction: The Triassic- Jurassic mass extinction was a global extinction event which occurred at the end of the Triassic Period (252 million to 201 million years ago) that resulted in the extinction of about 76 percent of all species. It is thought that the end-Triassic extinction was the key moment that …

The Mass Extinctions- I

Today we are going to learn about 3 of the big 5 mass extinction and what caused them. The first three mass extinction were the Ordovician, the Devonian and the Permian. Ordovician: The third largest extinction event in Earth’s history, the Ordovician mass extinction was begun before 488 million years ago and it ended 443 …

Ozone Formation and Terrestrial Life

Beneath the waves there are already tens of thousands of plants and animal species, the growth of life seems unstoppable. Now we’re looking for life on land. 460 million years ago and the tectonic plates have started to move once again below continent of Gondwana. The temperature is warm 30 degrees Celsius. Oxygen levels are …