Top 10 Largest Diamonds in the World-Photos

Cullinan I - also known as The Star of Africa was named after Sir Thomas Cullinan, owner of the mining company, and currently claims the title of largest cut diamond in the world. Of all the worlds largest diamonds Cullinan I is the largest. It was cut by Asscher in Amsterdam, weighs 530.20 carats, and has 74 facets. The Cullinan now resides in the Tower of London and is set in the sceptre of King Edward VII.


The Excelsior *which means higher* is not only one of the worlds largest diamonds it is the second largest diamond ever found. It originally weighed 995.2 carats. The diamond was cut into ten pieces, the three largest weighing 158, 147 and 130 carats. These pieces were then cut into 21 gems ranging from 70 carats to less than 1 carat. An African mine worker found the diamond as he was loading his truck, he kept the find secret until he could safely turn it over to the mine manager who rewarded him with some money, a horse and a saddle.



Orloff - the worlds third largest cut diamond weighs 194 carats. It was once one of the eyes of the idol Sheringham, in the temple of Brahma, later it was acquired by the Shah Nadir who desired to own one of the worlds largest diamonds. In 1775 it was given to Catherine II. of Russia by Grigori Orloff, one of her ex-lovers, and has been called the Orloff since then.



The Great Mogul is one of the worlds largest diamonds. The rough diamond was discovered in the 17th century, weighed 793 carats and was named after Shah Jehan... builder of the Taj Mahal.




The Premier Rose became one of the worlds largest diamonds when it was discovered in 1978. The diamond weighed 353.9 carats and was cut into three diamonds known as the Premier Rose family. All of them qualify to be one of the worlds largest diamonds. The largest of the three kept the name Premier Rose and now weighs 137.02 carats, is cut with 189 facets, and is the second largest pear shaped diamond in the world. It was sold in 1979 for $10,000,000.00.





The Premier Rose became one of the worlds largest diamonds when it was discovered in 1978. The diamond weighed 353.9 carats and was cut into three diamonds known as the Premier Rose family. All of them qualify to be one of the worlds largest diamonds. The largest of the three kept the name Premier Rose and now weighs 137.02 carats, is cut with 189 facets, and is the second largest pear shaped diamond in the world. It was sold in 1979 for $10,000,000.00.




The Regent another of the worlds largest diamonds was discovered in 1701 by an Indian slave near Golconda, it weighed 410 carats in the rough. Once owned by William Pitt, the English Prime Minister, it was cut into a cushion shaped brilliant of 140.50 carats and, until it was sold to the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France when Louis XV was a boy in 1717, was called The Pitt. It was then renamed The Regent and set in the crown Louis XV wore at his coronation. After the French revolution, it was owned by Napoleon Bonaparte who set it in the hilt of his sword. It is now on display in the Louvre as one of the worlds largest diamonds.



The Blue Hope another of the worlds largest diamonds was once owned by Louis XIV and officially designated the *blue diamond of the crown*. It was stolen during the French Revolution but showed up again in 1830 and was bought by Henry Philip Hope of London, the diamond was named after the new owner. The Blue Hope Diamond is believed to carry a curse, two of the owners had their entire family die just one year apart. It now resides in the Smithsonian in Washington where it is recognized as one of the worlds largest diamonds.



The Sancy is named after one of its owners Seigneur de Sancy, a French Ambassador to Turkey in the late 16th century. It was first owned by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who lost it in battle in 1477. He loaned it to the French king, Henry III, who wore it in the cap with which he concealed his baldness. Henry IV of France also borrowed the stone from Sancy, but it was sold in 1664 to James I of England. In 1688, James II, King of England, fled with it to Paris and it has never been found since. The Sancy weighed 55 carats making it one of the smallest of the worlds largest diamonds.


The Taylor-Burton diamond was found in the Premier mine in 1966, the rough stone weighed 240.80 carats. The famous diamond was purchased by Harry Winston who commissioned the stone cleaved into two pieces, the larger piece weighed 162 carats and was eventually cut into a pear shaped 69.42 carat diamond. It was later auctioned for $1,050,000 and named the "Cartier". The diamond was then purchased by Richard Burton and given to Elizabeth Taylor and renamed the Taylor-Burton. In 1978, following her divorce from Richard Burton, Elizabeth put one of the worlds largest diamonds up for sale to raise funds for a hospital in Botswana. The current owner is Robert Mouawad, President of the Mouawad Group.

NOTE***There may be some larger uncut diamonds, but these are the most beautiful and the Most Famous!

The Biggest Snakes in the World-Photos, Anacondas,Pythons

Frozen Inca Mummy Goes On Display

The mummy of an ancient Inca girl sits literally frozen in sleep at a museum in Argentina.The mummy, called La Doncella or The Maiden, is that of a teenage girl who died more than 500 years ago in a ritual sacrifice in the Andes Mountains. The girl and two other children were left on a mountaintop to succumb to the cold as offerings to the gods, according to the archaeologists who found the mummified remains in Argentina in 1999. National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Johan Reinhard, who co-led the expedition, described the discovery at the time as "the best preserved of any mummy I've seen."

The High Country Archaeological Museum in Salta, Argentina, unveiled La Doncella, the oldest of the three victims, for its first public viewing on September 6. The museum is displaying the mummy in a refrigerated, low-oxygen environment to reproduce the high-altitude conditions that allowed for its remarkable, natural preservation. The mummies of the other two children remain in storage for further study, museum officials said.

Huge Pythons--49-foot python captured in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesian villagers claim to have captured a python that is almost 49 feet long and weighs nearly 990 pounds, a local official said.
If confirmed, it would be the largest snake ever kept in captivity.
Hundreds of people have flocked to see the snake at a primitive zoo in Curugsewu village on the country’s main island of Java.

Local government official Rachmat said the reticulated python measured 48 feet 8 inches and weighed in at 983 pounds.
The Guiness Book of World Records lists the longest ever captured snake to be 32 feet. The heaviest — a Burmese Python kept in Gurnee, Ill. — weighs 402 pounds, the book said on its Web site.
The Indonesian newspaper Republika said the snake, which was caught last year but only recently put on public display, eats three or four dogs a month.
Reticulated pythons are the world’s longest snakes. They are capable of eating animals as large as sheep, and have been known to attack and consume humans.
The species is native to the swamps and jungles of Southeast Asia.

Hubble's Greatest Discoveries

Galaxy Evolution
Hubble has peered across space and time to study galaxies in an infant universe. The most famous of Hubble's faraway views is the Hubble Deep Field, a tiny speck of sky that revealed a zoo of about 3,000 galaxies, some as old as 10 billion years. The Hubble Deep Field, taken in 1995, has become one of the most studied regions of the sky and has been examined in a wide range of wavelengths, from radio to infrared.
Hubble's observations of deep space indicate that the young cosmos was filled with much smaller and more irregularly shaped galaxies than those that astronomers see in our nearby universe. These smaller structures, composed of gas and young stars, may be the building blocks from which the more familiar spiral and elliptical galaxies formed, possibly through processes such as multiple galaxy collisions and mergers.

The creepy truth about moray eels

It's like a scene from an Aliens movie: a scaly underwater creature looking something like a piranha crossed with a python strikes at its prey which is then reeled deeper into the beast's throat by a second set of toothy jaws.
But this sinister animal isn't a figment of a Hollywood director's imagination, suddenly bursting out of a character's stomach, terrifying audiences. It's a real-life product of evolution.
As if eels weren't already creepy enough, scientists at UC Davis have discovered that some eels have an extra set of jaws deep in their throats that launch forward into their mouths to help pull prey in.
"It looks like a funny pair of forceps with curved sharp teeth," said evolutionary biologist Rita Mehta, lead author of the research, which appears Thursday in Nature.
Mehta and functional morphologist Peter Wainwright captured the odd feeding behavior using high-speed video recordings of eels in lab tanks. Slowed down, the video reveals the jaws coming forward into the mouth and taking hold of a piece of food.
"It was one of those gee-whiz moments when we were absolutely ecstatic," Mehta said. "It was just astounding."
Before the discovery, scientists thought that all aquatic predators swallowed their prey using suction. By dropping the lower jaw and creating a flow of water into their mouths, they draw in the prey. The two species of moray eels studied by Mehta and Wainwright are the first examples of an alternative feeding method.
Bony fish also catch their prey with their teeth, but they still use suction to swallow it.
Instead of sucking, one of these eels bites its prey with its primary set of teeth. It then draws the second set of teeth into its mouth by contracting long muscles. The secondary jaws clamp down on the prey, allowing the eel to move its primary jaws forward in a gulping motion to take in more of the prey. The two sets of jaws take turns until the whole animal has been swallowed.
"It's a mechanical transport system so they can move their prey back into their esophagus," Mehta said. "It allows them to keep a grip on their prey at all times."
Snakes accomplish the same thing by alternately ratcheting the left and right sides of their jaws along their quarry.
Mehta thinks the eels' extra jaws may have evolved to help the eels catch animals in small cracks and crevices in the coral they inhabit. While suction requires expansion of the mouth, the eel's double-jaw trick allows it to remain long and skinny, and may have helped them earn their place as top predator on the coral reef.
The discovery shows that suction feeding in not the final word on fish feeding behavior.
"There are probably more alternatives to suction feeding," Mehta said. "This is probably the tip of the iceberg.
"We're just starting to look."