Giant Penguins of the Past!

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about Kumimanu Biceae, the giant penguin. Larger then an emperor penguin, this penguin beast was 5.5 feet tall, or 1.7 meters. Fortunately, it's 60 million years old, and extinct, so this large penguin isn't something  you'll be encountering any more. We just discovered its existence in  2017,  and it's pretty big. In fact, it's the biggest discovered penguin of all time! It's quite cool to see these ice blasts from the past showing of quite impressive creatures!

Adventure Van, signing out.

(Source: here!)

Turmeric: Memory worker.

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about Tumeric, a indian spice that improves your memory capabilites and helps stave off dementia. In a study done by UCLA, in a double-blind, placebo-controlled test, it was discovered that if you take two doses of Curcumin, a common substance in Tumeric, a day, you'd have around a 28% improvement in memory function, as well as feeling better overall and less plaque buildup in areas that control memory, decision making,  and emotion. All in all, there has yet to be a discovered disadvantage with this, so if you have a steady supply of tumeric, go nuts! Or roots.

Adventure Van, remembering awayyy.

Mars and Humans: Destiny?

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about Water on Mars! I know, it's nothing new, but it is. Recently, we've discovered parts of Mars that have sheets of ice underneath a few feet or ground. Seeing how the more we look at it, the more it seems to oblige humans living there, it's getting more and more possible to build colonies at later date. Humans seem to be really interested over all in working towards mars, and we're getting closer with technology to come up with a great way to get up there, build a research station, colonies, and even Terraforming. But even with what we have now, it's looking optimistic. Theoretically, if you go out with a shovel and a bucket, you should be able to dig down deep enough to cut out blocks of ice. It's the pure type of ice, not ice encrusted dirt, which is harder to get water out of. All in all, assuming spaceship exploration of technology continues at the current rate, it's very likely that we'll be able to have humans on space in less then 20 years. But that's hoping for the best.

Adventure Van, drinking away!

Lights Off? The problems with Light Pollution.

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about Light Pollution, a thing that sounds outrageous at first. How can you have too much light? Except for staring at a bright bulb, there's no real disadvantages to light, right? Well, the answer might not be obvious to you now, but that's because of the fact that we've grown so used to what we've been obscuring being obscured. The amount of stars we used to be able to see, (and are still able to see at some remote places) has been reduced down to a few ten. The sky has become so obscured by human lights, that we can't see the galaxy above our own heads. It's destroying the aesthetic. But aesthetics aren't that important, right?

Well, other then being a detriment to astrologers who need to seek out untouched areas in order to look at potentially important things up in the sky, it's also damaging local wild life, and humanity as a whole. How? Well, most animals incapable of generating their own light (almost all of them), are based around a cycle of day and night, while those that can depend on light to deal with their own species. Light ruins the cycle and can even mess up very important things, like mating or hibernation.

But hey, says the most selfish among us. If it doesn't effect me, why should I care? To them I say, it does effect you, and in more ways then robbing us of natural beauty and wildlife. As above, we humans lived a very long time without being able to have an excess of unnatural light, and we suffer the consequences range from Insomnia to oversleeping. An ill-placed collection of lights produces a glare that can blind people, which when around a street is devastating. And above all, too much light at night can raise chances of the following: obesity, depression, sleep disorders, diabetes, breast cancer and more.

Adventure Van, dimming the lights.

If you're interested in this kind of stuff, or want to help out in your area, check out the International Dark Sky Association.

Exercise & Brains

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about exercise. Well, we all know that exercise is a great way to make your body healthier, happier, and more capable. But the more we look at the benefits, the more ways we discover that it helps us. The most recent way? Aerobic exercise is being researched to apparently have a positive effect on stopping brain shrink. The well backed results (14 separate studies involving upwards of 730 participants) state that people who do that type of exercise dramatically reduce shrinkage in their hippocampus. Basically, the more research put into exercise, the more it seems to reap.

That's Adventure Van, flexing out.