How do forest workers in Bengal protect against tigers?

The mangrove forests of the Sunderbans in West Bengal, India are home
to deadly Bengal tigers, which are easily able to kill a human. Yet
hunters, woodcutters, and honey gatherers often enter these swampy
forests. How do they protect themselves?

Each person who enters the Sunderbans wears a rubber mask of a human
face on the back of his or her head. The belief is that the tiger will only attack its prey from behind. If it can see your face, it will not attack.

The masks, issued by the government, are part of a larger program
that includes the placement of electrified human dummies and the
construction of freshwater ponds to keep the tigers out of the rivers, where people are often attacked. The Sunderbans is one of the few places where the tiger population is growing:

http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/02/25/intl/intl.1.html

More about Bengal tigers:
http://the-planet.net/co/animal/Btiger.html

A reptilian tiger-equivalent that lived 260 million years ago:
http://features.LearningKingdom.com/fact/archive/1999/02/10.html


Where was the first geothermal electricity generated?


In 1904, the world's first geothermal electric generator went into
operation at Italy's Larderello Hot Springs. Using pressurized steam from underground, the original plant was able to generate about 250 kilowatts, barely enough to run one modern home.

Electricity was not the first use of the hot springs at Larderello. Hot water was used in 1777,and starting in 1790 brine from the springs was processed to extract boric acid and other compounds of boron.

Today, Larderello has 300 wells as deep as 700 meters (2300 feet),
which yield ultra-hot water at 235 degrees Celsius (455 F) and a
pressure of 30 atmospheres. The site now produces 300-400 megawatts
of power.

More about geothermal energy and how it is used:
http://geothermal.marin.org/pwrheat.html


Another place where geothermal energy is important:
http://features.LearningKingdom.com/fact/archive/1997/05/02.html

Why do we use alternating current (AC) electricity?
http://features.LearningKingdom.com/fact/archive/1999/10/14.html


When was money first used?

If money is a physical object traded as standard tokens of value,
then the first money was being used by 9,000 BC in the middle east
and Africa, where cattle and measures of grain were exchanged as
standard units for other items like food, raw materials, land, or
wives.

Among the first objects specially created as value tokens were coils
of cast silver "ring money" that were used in Mesopotamia as early as
2,500 BC. These bits of silver were weighed in shekels, the world's
first standard units of measure.

The first coins were circulated in Lydia in 687 BC, according to
Herodotus. Although the Chinese may have used paper money for a
short time in the same century, the first western use of paper money
was not until the 18th century, by the French.

How did the invention of money change civilization?
http://www.discover.com/oct_issue/cradle.html

Coins and money systems in ancient Greece and Rome:
http://www.columbia.edu/~rcc20/romans/money.html

Mesopotamia's standard units of weight and measure:
http://features.LearningKingdom.com/fact/archive/1999/01/29.html