The Spectacular Sea of Salt: Salar de Uyuni

Posted by Queuebot in Travel & Places on August 29, 2009 at 9:15 pm

The largest and highest salt flats in the world, Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, has to be seen to be believed.  Quite an unearthly experience, your attention is first drawn to the mysterious mounds of sand that dot the landscape.  But that’s not all. Salar de Uyuni even has rock trees and a locomotive graveyard to boot.

You may not have heard of Uyuni, but our astronauts have. It is used as a target for calibrating and testing remotes sensing systems on satellites in orbit. Why? It is big – very big – and has an incredibly smooth surface which is highly reflective when it is covered in water, making it perfect for that task.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.

 
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What’s So Hot About Chili Peppers?

Posted by Miss Cellania in Food & Drinks on March 23, 2009 at 10:48 pm

We love chili peppers, the hotter, the better! The ingredient that gives spicy peppers their heat is capsaicin, but what is the purpose of capsaicin in nature? To find the answer, ecologist Joshua Tewksbury traveled to Bolivia, home of many kinds of peppers.

“Capsaicin demonstrates the incredible elegance of evolution,” says Tewksbury. The specialized chemical deters microbes—humans harness this ability when they use chilies to preserve food—but capsaicin doesn’t deter birds from eating chili fruits and spreading seeds. “Once in a while, the complex, often conflicting demands that natural selection places on complex traits results in a truly elegant solution. This is one of those times.”

Link -via Boing Boing

(image credit: Tomás Carlo)

 
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Bolivia's Secret Bowling Technique: Two-Handed Bowling

Posted by Queuebot in Sports on March 11, 2009 at 1:25 pm


[YouTube - Link]


A team of Bolivian bowlers has stormed the bowling world with their unusual two-handed technique, winning medals and championships in Argentina and Brazil.  Originally invented by Australian bowler Jason Belmonte, the two-handed bowling technique is relatively simple to perform:

Just two fingers are inserted into the holes and the thumb is left out.  The right hand is used to cradle the ball and create extra spin on release.  Then, if you’re lucky, you get a strike.

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

 
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The Salt Hotel

Posted by Queuebot in Travel & Places on January 12, 2009 at 12:56 pm

A hotel in Bolivia always has salt on its dining table – actually, its dining table is salt! Here’s the strange Salt Hotel of the Uyuni Flats:

The hotel was built in 1993 by a salt artisan who saw a mint in the number of tourists looking for places to stay while visiting the flats. The lodge has 15 bedrooms, a dining room, a living room and a bar.

The buildings’s roof, and bar are built of salt and even the floor is covered with salt granules. The walls are made of salt blocks stuck together with a cement-like substance made of salt and water. During rainy seasons, the walls are strengthened with new blocks, while the owners ask the guests to avoid licking the walls to prevent deterioration.

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