Tahukah Anda/Did You Know?

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Mercedes cars are named after an Austrian girl

In 1897, Austrian businessman Emil Jellinek, travelled from his home in Nice, France to purchase a car from the Daimler factory in Cannstatt, Germany. On his return to the French Riviera, his sporting Daimler Phoenix caused such a sensation that he decided to enter it into a local touring competition, under the name of "Mercedes" after his favourite 9 year old daughter. Realising the business potential for the new car, he not only placed an order for 36 more, but also secured the franchise for selling them in several countries. Gottlieb Daimler also agreed to having them sold under the name of "Mercedes."

The Mercedes trade name was registered after Daimler's death in 1900 and the 3-pointed star became the trade mark. Daimler had once drawn the emblem on a postcard to his wife, the star symbolising the growth of the business into transport on land, sea and air.

For Karl Benz, a name for his automobile was simple: he enclosed his name in a cogwheel to exemplify the solidness of his engineering works at Mannheim. The cogwheel later became a laurel wreath.

After the First World War the Daimler and Benz companies worked closer together, generally advertising on the same posters. They amalgamated in 1926, combining the laurel wreath and 3-pointed star as their trade mark.

Interestingly, although Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz were two of the major pioneers in the automotive industry, they probably never met, even though they lived only 100km (60 miles) from each other in Germany. Daimler passed away in 1900. Daimler-Benz amalgamated in 1926.

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The word "dollar" has its origins in the Roman Empire

A mining hole in the mountains of Bohemia produced so much silver it became the official source of coinage for the entire Holy Roman Empire. The mine was in a valley called Joachimsthal, and the coins came to have the same name: "Joachimstalers." Over time this became shortened to "Talers" and over more time, the American pronunciation of the word became the name for the currency that you would like to have in your pocket.

The $ sign was designed in 1788 by Oliver Pollock, a New Orleans businessman, using a combination of Spanish money symbols.

The $ sign is used in many countries other than the United States, including the use for the Argentine peso, Brazilian real, Cape Verde escudo, Chilean peso, Colombian peso, Cuban peso, Dominican peso, Mexican peso, Tongan pa'anga and Uruguayan peso. Other countries that trade in their currency as dollars are Australia, Bahamas, Canada, Liberia and others

If you stack one million US$1 bills, it would be 110m (361 ft) high and weight exactly 1 ton. A million dollars' worth of $100 bills weighs only 10 kg (22 lb). One million dollars' worth of once-cent coins (100 million coins) weigh 246 tons..

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If you hit a diamond with a hammer, it will break!

A diamond is the hardest natural substance on earth, but if it is placed in an oven and the temperature is raised to about 763 degrees Celsius (1405 degrees Fahrenheit), it will simply vanish, without even ash remaining. Only a little carbon dioxide will have been released.

Diamonds are formed over a period of a billion or more years deep within earth's crust - about 150km (90 miles) deep - and is pushed to the surface by volcanoes. Most diamonds are found in volcanic rock, called Kimberlite, or in the sea after having been carried away by rivers when they were pushed to the surface.

A diamond is 58 times harder than the next hardest mineral on earth, corundum, from which rubies and sapphires are formed. It was only during the 15th century that it was discovered that the only way to cut diamonds was with other diamonds. Yet, diamonds are brittle. If you hit one hard with a hammer, it will shatter.

The largest diamond
The world's largest diamond was the Cullinan, found in South Africa in 1905. It weighed 3,106.75 carats uncut. It was cut into the Great Star of Africa, weighing 530.2 carats, the Lesser Star of Africa, which weighs 317.40 carats, and 104 other diamonds of nearly flawless colour and clarity. They now form part of the British crown jewels.

The Cullinan was three times the size of the next largest diamond, the Excelsior, which was also found in South Africa. The world's largest documented polished diamond - unearthed in 1986, also in South Africa - is called Unnamed Brown. It weighs 545 carats and was cut down from a 700 carat rough diamond. It took an international team of expert cutters 3 years to complete the masterpiece. Another impressive diamond that also took 3 years to cut, and also is part of the British crown jewels, is the Centenary Diamond. It weighs 273.85 carats and is the world's largest flawless diamond.

Not all diamonds are white. Impurities lend diamonds a shade of blue, red, orange, yellow, green and even black. A green diamond is the rarest. It is not the rarest gemstone, however. That title goes to a pure red ruby. Diamonds actually are found in fair abundance; thousands are mined every year. 80% of them are not suitable for jewellery - they are used in industry. Only diamonds of higher clarity are sourced to the jewellery stores.

Synthetic diamonds
Late in the 19th century, Scottish scientist James Ballantyne mixed lithium with bone oil and paraffin, sealed it in iron tubes and heated it to red hot. He claimed the resultant stones were diamonds. They were stored away and only many years later they were found to be diamonds, although synthetic.

Weighing diamonds

A diamond carat differs from a gold carat. The gold carat indicates purity - pure gold being 24 carats. One diamond carat is 200 milligrams (0.007055 oz). The word carat derives from the carob bean. Gem dealers used to balance their scales with carob beans because these beans all have same weight.

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How many friends in your address book?

The world's worst traffic jam occurs during the summer on the road from Paris to Toulouse, France. The 2000 record of 604km was well beaten in 2001 when holiday makers jammed up for 661km. That would give one ample time to call all your friends. Except if you're from Argentina or Hong Kong; you might have too many friends!

According to a Plaxo

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The human head contains 22 bones

  The human head contains 22 bones, consisting the cranium and the facial bones. The cranium is formed by 8 bones: the frontal bone, two parietal bones, two temporal bones, the occipital bone in the back, the ethmoid bone behind the nose, and the sphenoid bone. The face consists of 14 bones including the maxilla (upper jaw) and mandible (lower jaw). (The skull has many little holes in its base which allow the cranial nerves to travel to their destinations.)

  The cranium protects the brain, which, for an average adult male weighs about 1400 gram (49oz). The brain of Russian novelist Turgenev, weighed 2021g (71oz), Bismarck's brain weighed 1807g (64oz), while that of famous French statesman Gambetta was only 1294g (46oz). Female average brain mass is slightly less than that of males. The largest woman's brain recorded weighed 1742g (6oz). Einstein's brain was of average size.

  An elephant's brain weighs 5000g (176oz or 11 lb), a whale's 10000g (352oz or 22lb). In proportion to the body, the whale has a much smaller brain than man. This seem to give man the edge, until it was discovered that the dwarf monkey has 1g of brain per 27g (0.95oz) of body, and the capuchin monkey has 1g of brain per 17,5g body, whereas man has 1 gram of brain to 44g of body.

  Brain power
  The human brains consists of more than 100 billion neurons (nerve cells) through which the brain's commands are sent in the form of electric pulses. These pulses travel at more than 400 km/h (250 mph), creating enough electricity to power a lightbulb. The brain consumes more energy than any other organ, burning up a whopping one-fifth of the food we take in.

  It is estimated that the mental capacity of a 100-year old human with perfect memory could be represented by computer with 10 to the power of 15 bits (one petabit). At the current rate of computer chip development, that figure can be reached in about 35 years. However, that represents just memory capacity, not the extremely complex processes of thought creation and emotions.

  But consider this: for all the complexity of the brain, you still have only one thought at a time. Make it a positive thought.

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The mathematical decimal system was introduced in 4BC

On 23 September 1999 NASA scientists lost the $100 million Mars Climate Orbiter because they instructed the craft in imperial (inches and feet) instead of metric (metres) measurements. It sent the probe, which was set up for metric data, off course and burning up in the Mars atmosphere.

The first decimal system was introduced in the 4th Century BC by the Sumerians of Mesopotamia, to whom the invention of writing is credited. They based their numerical system on powers of 60 subdivided into multiples of 10. It was from this system that Sumero-Babylonians developed the time system that we use today: each hour is divided into 60 minutes, which are divided into 60 seconds. However, they did not have a symbol for zero, which was introduced by Arabians only toward the end of the first millennium BC. It is thought that the zero could have been devised by Indian Hindu mathematicians because the concept of nothing was important in their early religion and philosophy.

Metric system introduced into Europe
In 1202, Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa - better known as Fibonacci - explained the decimal system to his European colleagues in his Book of the Abacus. Fibonacci's father was a customs officer in the North African town of Bugia, so Fibonacci grew up with the Moor education of the decimal system. English mathematician John Halifax would try to promote the decimal system to his countrymen in 1253. But it was only in the 16th Century that Simon Stevin, a quartermaster in the Dutch Army, presented the Western world a user-friendly way to convert to decimal fractions in his book "The Tenth" published in 1585.

In 1670, Gabriel Mouton, a theologian and mathematician from Lyon, France proposed the general use of the decimal system and suggested a standard linear measurement based on the length of the arc of one minute of longitude on the Earth's surface and divided decimally (by ten). A "metre" was defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance on the earth's surface between the equator and either pole. Later the metre was redefined as the distance between 2 scratches on a bar of platinum-iridium alloy. In 1960, the metre was established in terms of an atomic standard, redefined in wavelengths of light. The metric system was given the official symbol SI for Systeme International d'Unites, the "modernised metric system."

Used in most countries
The decimal system is used in most countries, but not the USA. The system was made legal (but not mandatory) in the US by the Metric Act of 1866, and the US also was a signatory of the Treaty of the Metre in 1875. The US Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 (Public Law 94-168) and established the US Metric Board, but did not set a target date for metric conversion. However, US companies are gearing toward the metric system, with all 4 major motor companies converting to the metric standard. The computer industry also uses the decimal system: your computer operates on the binary calculations of 1 and 0.

Interestingly, standardisation of the inch for worldwide use occurred only in 1958. (The inch was standardised worldwide as 25.4 millimetres exactly.) Prior to that the United States, Great Britain, and Canada each had their own definition of the inch, and in each case the inch was defined in terms of metric units, the only set of internationally-accepted measurement standards. A problem still exists for the foot, where the international foot (based on the 25.4 mm inch) and the survey foot (based on the 25.40005 inch) are both in use. Over 100 miles they differ by 32 cm, or over one foot.

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Boiling point of water

In the early 18th century Anders Celsius defined his temperature scale on the melting and boiling temperature of water. You might have been told that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius (212F) but the boiling point of water actually depends on the oxygen content and atmospheric pressure. The higher the altitude, the lower the temperature at which water boils. People who live at high altitudes, like Tibetans, drink their tea while it is bubbling with boiling. Many Tibetans who moved to India suffered serious burns when they drank their boiling tea at sea-level.

British Standard 6008 and International Standard ISO 3103 advise that tea is best made with water that is freshly boiled. Prolonged boiling of water, or water that is boiled twice, drives off the dissolved oxygen in the water, making the tea taste flat.

Tea is said to have been discovered in 2737 BC by a Chinese emperor when some tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water. The teabag was introduced in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan of New York.

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365 different languages are spoken in Indonesia

Indonesia is the 4th most populous country in the world, with 216 million people. The 300 ethnic groups speak 365 different languages. Bahasa Indonesia is the official language. Other languages include Acehnese, Ambonese, Batak, Buginese, Ceramese, Dayak, Halmahera, Javanese, Minahasa, Sundanese, Sasak, Tetum, and Toraja.

Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world. It covers 2 million square km, an area the size of Australia, but only 20% is land, the rest is water. There are five major islands and about 30 smaller island groups. The main islands are: Sumatra, Java/Madura, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Irian Jaya. In total, Indonesia comprises of 13,667 islands, of which about 6,000 are inhabited. The capital is Jakarta.

In the 1600's, the Indonesian Moluccas islands were called the Spice Islands. Trade in spices promised great wealth to early Europeans, and it is the search for a route to these spices that led to the great voyages of Ferdinand Magellan, Christopher Columbus and others.

Some of the most interesting animals are found in the Indonesian tropical climate. The Komodo dragon (varanus komodoensis), the world's largest lizard, grows to 3 metres (9,8 ft) long. The dwarf buffalo is one of the rarest animals in the world, and the Badak Jawa is a one-horned rhino. Indonesia is known worldwide for ornamental fish species and the Rafflesia arnoldi, the largest flower in the world, found only in certain parts of Sumatra.

cucusaddam

di mana wang kertas malaysia di buat ? kenapa masih ada wang palsu

hitamputih

Etymology
The word ringgit means "jagged" in Malay, and was originally used to refer to the serrated edges of Spanish silver dollars widely circulated in the area. The Singapore dollar and the Brunei dollar are also called ringgit in Malay (although e.g. the U.S. and Australian dollars are dolar), hence its official abbreviation RM for Ringgit Malaysia.
The Malay names ringgit and sen were officially adopted as the sole official names in August 1975. Previously they had been known officially as dollars and cents in English and ringgit and sen in Malay, and in some parts of the country this usage continues. For example, in Penang one ringgit is "one dollar" in English and "tsit8-k鍀

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The first credit card was issued in 1951

Credit was first used in Assyria, Babylon and Egypt 3000 years ago. The bill of exchange - the forerunner of banknotes - was established in the 14th century. Debts were settled by one-third cash and two-thirds bill of exchange. Paper money followed only in the 17th century.

The first advertisement for credit was placed in 1730 by Christopher Thornton, who offered furniture that could be paid off weekly.

From the 18th century until the early part of the 20th, tallymen sold clothes in return for small weekly payments. They were called "tallymen" because they kept a record or tally of what people had bought on a wooden stick. One side of the stick was marked with notches to represent the amount of debt and the other side was a record of payments. In the 1920s, a shopper's plate - a "buy now, pay later" system - was introduced in the USA. It could only be used in the shops which issued it.

In 1950, Diners Club and American Express launched their charge cards in the USA, the first "plastic money". In 1951, Diners Club issued the first credit card to 200 customers who could use it at 27 restaurants in New York. But it was only until the establishment of standards for the magnetic strip in 1970 that the credit card became part of the information age.

The first use of magnetic stripes on cards was in the early 1960’s, when the London Transit Authority installed a magnetic stripe system.

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There is a bird that barks instead of sings!

The Antpitta avis canis Ridgley is a bird that looks like a stuffed duck on stilts and barks like a dog. The bird was discovered by ornithologist Robert S. Ridgley in the Andes in Ecuador in June 1998. Thirty of these long-legged, black-and-white barking birds were found. It apparently had gone undetected because it lives in remote parts and, of course, doesn't sing. The size of a duck, it is one of the largest birds discovered in the last 50 years.

There also are dogs that do not bark! The basenji, smallish dog with a silky copper coat, does not bark. Instead, it yodels when it get excited. Wild dogs like the African Wild Dog also do not bark.

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Traffic lights were in use before there were motorcars

Traffic lights were used before the advent of the motorcar. In 1868, British railroad signal engineer J P Knight invented the first traffic light, a lantern with red and green signals. It was installed at the intersection of George and Bridge Streets in front of the the British House of Commons to control the flow of horse buggies and pedestrians.

Motorcars were introduced to the US in the late 1890s and the need for traffic control soon became obvious. A number of people came up with ideas for traffic control. In 1910, Earnest Sirrine of Chicago, Illinois filed for a patent (no 976,939) for what is considered the first automatic street traffic system, using non illuminated words STOP and PROCEED.

In 1912, Lester Wire of Salt Lake City, Utah invented an electric traffic light that used red and green lights. However, he did not apply for a patent. The next year, James Hoge received patent no 1,251,666 for a manually controlled traffic light system using electric lights. It was installed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1914, displaying the words STOP and MOVE.

The first traffic light system to use red and green lights were patented by William Ghiglieri of San Francisco, California in 1917 (patented no 1,224,632). His design could be operated manually or in automatic.

The amber light was added in 1920 by William Potts, a Detroit policeman. He actually invented several traffic light systems, indlucing the overhang four-way system, but did not apply for patents. The first person to apply for a patent to produce inexpensive traffic lights was Garrett Morgan, who received his patent in 1923.

Parking Meter
The credit for taking all your parking credits goes to Carlton Cole Magee who invented the first parking meter in 1932, receiving a patent (no 2,118,318) for it in 1935. His Magee-Hale Park-O-Meter Company installed the first meter in Oklahoma City in 1935 and still produces most of the parking meters in the United States.

Don't Walk

The first "Don't Walk"' signs were installed in New York City on 5 February 1952.

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Gibraltar is named after a former slave

Mohammed's followers burst out of Arabia after his death in 632 and by the end of the 7th century their descendants had conquered the whole of North Africa. The first Moslem incursion into Iberia was in 710, when a small reconnaissance force landed at the southernmost point of the peninsula. The following year a former slave, a Berber by the name of Tariq ibn-Ziyad, led an army of about 7 000 ashore at a point close to the huge rock which dominates the entrance to the Mediterranean. They called the rock Jabal Tariq, or Tariq's Mount, and eventually Christian tongues changed it to Gibraltar.

Or is it?
Prior to the invasion of the Iberian Peninsular by Tariq, small incursions and recces were conducted by Tarif ibn Malik Nakli, who reported that Spain was ripe for the picking. According to Tito Vallejo in his article in the Gibraltar Chronicle, when Tariq landed in Gibraltar in 711, the Rock was named Jabal Al Fath and the town Medinat Al Fath, which mean the Mountain of Victory and the City of Victory respectively.

The Arab word Tariq means track or path. The Rock of Gibraltar became "Jabal Tariq" or The Mountain of the Path, for the Path of Islam into the Iberian Peninsula. The theory is that the Muslims, at the height of their religious fervour, would not dare to name the mountain after the name of a person but rather in honour of their religion.

End of the earth

Before Columbus "discovered" America, Gibraltar was considered to be the end of the earth. The Spanish town of Tarifa is named after the Arab word Taraf, which means the end of something. Going beyond Tarifa meant that you would fall over the edge of the earth.

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The world's highest bridge is in the Himalayans

The highest bridge in the world can be found in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan mountains. The valley lies at an altitude of about 5 602 m (18,379 ft) above sea level on the India side of Kashmir. Called the Baily Bridge, it is only 30 metres (98 ft) long, and was built by the Indian Army in August 1982.

If you were thinking of the bridge that stands highest over water, then the Royal Gorge Bridge over the Arkansas River in Colorado, US is your answer. Built in 1929 for $350,000, it spans 321 m (1,053 ft) above the water.
The highest road in the world runs along the Himalayan ridge in Kashmir.


The largest bridge in the world is the 13,27 km (8,25 miles) long Trans Bay Bridge which links San Francisco to Oakland. It was built in 1936 at a cost of $77 million. The longest bridge in the world is the Pontchartrain bridge in New Orleans, USA with a total length of 38,6 km (24 miles). It was completed in 1956. The most expensive bridge is the Seto-Ohashi-Kojima bridge in Japan. At 13,22 km (8,21 miles) long, it was built in 1988 at a cost of $8.3 billion.

The world's largest natural bridge is the Rainbow Bridge, tucked away among the rugged, isolated canyons at the base of Navajo Mountain, Utah, USA. It is a natural wonder. From its base to the top of the arch, it reaches 88,4 m (290 ft) - nearly the height of the Statue of Liberty - and spans 83,8 m (275 ft) across the river. The top of the arch is 12,8 m (42 ft) thick and 10 m (33 ft) wide.

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World's largest flower

The largest flower in the world, the rafflesia arnoldi, weighs 7 kg (15 pounds) and grows only on the Sumatra island of Indonesia. Its petals grow to

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The Leaning Tower of Pisa has never really been straight


Soon after building started in 1173, the foundation of the Pisa tower settled unevenly. Construction was stopped, and was continued only a 100 year later. It then became visibly clear that the Tower of Pisa is leaning, tilting to the south.
Since regular measuring of the tower began in 1911, the top of the tower has moved 1,2 millimetres (0,05 inch) per year. Today the top of the Tower of Pisa is some 5,3m (17,4 ft) off-centre.

After the bell tower of the Cathedral of Pavia collapsed in 1989, the Consorzio Progetto Torre di Pisa (Tower of Pisa Project Consortium) commissioned engineers to stabilise the Leaning Tower. Because the Tower tilted in different directions in its first years, it is slightly curved, like a banana. Engineers are working on the footing of the Tower rather than the structure, hoping to ease the top back about 20 cm (about 8 inches). But it means that the 800-year old tower will remain leaning.

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World population

The US Census Bureau reported that the 6 billionth person was born at 1.24am on Sunday 18 July 1999. The United Nations however, had set that landmark at 12 October 1999.

Every second 5 people are born and 2 people die, a net gain of 3 people. At this rate, the world population will double every 40 years and would be 12 billion in 40 years, 24 billion in 80 years, and more than 48 billion in 120 years. However the United Nations estimate that world population will stabalize at 12 billion in 120 years, citing that effective family planning will result in a universally low birth rate. Education plays a key role: almost half of the 6 billion people are under age 25.

At the beginning of the second millennium (1000 AD) the world population was 400 million. In 1750 there were about 800 million people in the world. In 1850 there were a billion more, and by 1950, another billion. Then it took just 50 years to double to 6 billion. In another 50 years the world population is expected to be 9 billion, which means that a decrease in growth of the world population is expected.

The recent global population explosion is not only the consequence of increased birth rates but also the result of an unprecedented decrease in death rate. Significant advances in public health and medicine, phenomenal agricultural yields and the expanding global economy contributed to the population explosion as the lifespan average continues to increase.

Only one in ten people lived in cities in 1900. By 1994 the figure had grown to one of every two people, creating megalopolies of millions to tens of millions inhabitants. More than 200 cities have a population of more than a million people. Managing such large cities, and better management of the planet's resources, could become the most difficult problem of this century.

In spite of the population increase and desertification, famines have actually become less frequent in the past 200 years. The famines in Africa seen on TV are due to the political strife and civil wars that disorganize the economy, paralyze transportation, and prevent emergency food drops. See the current conflicts between countries

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Nostradamus predictions

NOSTRADAMUS, the French Christian Jew who lived in France in the 16th century, made many accurate forecasts, including the two World Wars. 18 of his 950 quatrains refer to a third world war. Some Nostradamus experts had given the date for the start of such a war as mid-1999, referring to the Balkan conflict surrounding Kosovo. They obviously misinterpreted the quatrains. Their attention then turned to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

NOSTRADAMUS
Born Michel de Notredame on 14 December 1503 in St Remy, France, he was the oldest of five sons. His grandfather, Jean, taught him Latin, Greek, Hebrew, mathematics and astrology at an early age. Nostradamus received a medical degree in 1529 and became physician-in-ordinary to Charles IX during the bubonic plague. He is said to have had extraordinary healing abilities.

Nostradamus was in his late 40s when, it is told, he frequently went into a meditative state and had visions of the future. He began to document the visions in a mixture of Lain, French, and Greek quatrains, publishing his famous "Centuries" in 1558.

Nostradamus was married twice, losing his first wife and two children to the plague. He died on 2 July 1566. "Centuries" was translated into English in 1672. In 1781 it was banned by the Roman Catholic Church. Ironically, in 1553, when Nostradamus encountered a group of Franciscan monks he threw himself on his knees, clutching at the garment of one of the monks, Felice Peretti. When asked why he had done this he replied that he must yield "before his Holiness." Nineteen years after the death of Nostradamus, Peretti became Pope Sixtus V.

What the experts say Nostradamus predicted about the Balkan war
The war prophecy is reserved for someone whom Nostradamus refers to as "the tyrant." He predicted that the Slavs will "change their prince" and "raise an army in the mountains," suggesting a guerilla war. He speaks of "when the north pole is united" (perhaps NATO?), and there are many geographical references to the Balkans, such as Greece, Italy and the Mediterranean.

The war is linked to when the "eagle" (United States) and the "cock" (France) stand together. There also is specific reference to the time when England, Poland and Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia) "form a new alliance." The former Eastblock countries recently joined NATO.

He predicted that the Allies will win, that the war will be protracted, lasting seven months, and that it may go beyond the Balkans, toward the north, but that after the war there will be "peace on earth for a long time."

The forecasts by Nostradamus seemed to be confirmed by other seers, including Nicolaas van Rensburg, the famous South African seer who lived 1862 to 1926. At the turn of the 20th Century Van Rensburg had also predicted the use of electricity, the massacre of six million Jews, the Chernobyl disaster, the rise and fall of Russia, and the European Union - in the last two instances accurately describing the flags before they were designed. Of the third world war, he predicted that England would left weakened, while Germany would rise to become the world's most powerful nation.

What the experts say Nostradamus predicted about the WTC attack
"In the year of the new century and nine months, from the sky will come a great king of terror. The sky will burn at 45 degrees... fire approaches the great new city... there will be thunder... The third big war will begin when the city is burning."
So it is quoted among rumour mongers. The facts are:

Nostradamus appears not to have made predictions about the World Trade Centre attack or, at least, none that could easily be understood from the quatrains. He did not mention "the new century," or "nine months" and New York is not at 45 degrees; the Manhattan latitude is 40

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Dinosaurs did not eat grass!

Plant-eating dinosaurs did not eat grass, because there wasn't any - so it is thought. During the Mesozoic Era, when the dinosaurs lived, conifers - cone-bearing trees and shrubs - dominated the landscape. They included redwoods, yews, pines, palms, cypress and the monkey puzzle tree. Flowering plants and grass evolved only later.

By the way, a plant does not look like its parents, but will always resemble its grandparents.