Creative Edge

3 Unique Staircase Features You’ll Find in Historic Homes You can learn a lot about history by looking around an older house. Charming features like phone niches reveal a lot about the people and technology of bygone days. If you’ve ever inspected an older staircase, you may have noticed details like brass corner protectors or metal stair rods. Read on to take a closer look at these features, discover their purpose and find staircase ideas for your next DIY project. Dust Corners Before vacuum cleaners were invented, sweeping dust out of stair corners was a major headache. Stair corner dust guards were created in the 1890s to help simplify sweeping. That’s not their only use, though—stair guards also add some charm to wooden staircases. Try adding them to awkward corners in your home, like the corners between a wall and fireplace molding. Stair Rods According to The Victorian Emporium, a renovation company specializing in period homes, stair rods were u...

  Image Credit & Copyright: Michele Guzzini Explanation: Do you recognize this constellation?  Although it is one of the most recognizable star groupings on the sky, this is a more full Orion than you can see -- an Orion only revealed with long exposure digital camera imaging and post- processing.  Here the cool red giant Betelgeuse takes on a strong orange tint as the brightest star on the upper left.  Orion's hot blue stars are numerous, with supergiant Rigel balancing Betelgeuse on the lower right, and Bellatrix at the upper right. Lined up in Orion's belt are three stars all about 1,500 light-years away, born from the constellation's well-studied interstellar clouds.  Just below Orion's belt is a bright but fuzzy patch that might also look familiar -- the stellar nursery known as Orion's Nebula.  Finally, just barely visible to the unaided eye but quite striking here is Barnard's Loop -- a huge gaseous emission nebula surrounding Orion's Belt and Ne...

Chandrayaan-3: India lunar rover Pragyaan takes a walk on the Moon India's Moon rover has taken first steps on the lunar surface a day after the country made history by becoming the first to land near the south pole. Chandrayaan-3's rover "ramped down" from the lander and "India took a walk on the Moon!", the space agency said. The Vikram lander successfully touched down as planned on Wednesday evening. With this, India joins an elite club of countries to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union and China. The 26kg rover called Pragyaan (the Sanskrit word for wisdom) was carried to the Moon in the Vikram lander's belly. After the dust raised by last evening's landing had settled, panels on one side of Vikram opened to deploy a ramp to enable Pragyaan to slide down to the lunar surface. It will now roam around the rocks and craters, gathering crucial data and images to be sent back to Earth for analysis. Pragyaan is ca...

  What happens to an elephant's placenta after birth? Sometimes, the female elephant will eat it. …sometimes it’s left on the ground, and the mother and calf leave as soon as the calf can walk, because the smell of the birth will attract predators and scavengers. The first omnivore or carnivore to come along will then eat it.  A True Story  The Elephant's Placenta and the Lucky Brothers   We Maasai believe that the elephant is possibly one of the cleverest animals in existence. We have witnessed through the ages that a female elephant buries her placenta deep into the earth post giving birth. Thus, it is very rare to see an elephant’s placenta.  As per our Maa culture and traditions, a person who sees an elephant placenta is considered to be a lucky human being. We believe that if we see an elephant placenta, we will be showered with blessings from all. In fact the spectacle is so rare, that it seems we can count with our fingers the number who have witnes...

Not A Single Branch Was Cut To Build This Three-Storey House On A 40-Foot Mango Tree I magine being able to pluck fresh mangoes without having to move from bed. Or waking up to the sounds of birds right next to you, with their nests built inside your bedroom. For most of us, this sounds like a scene out of a Disney movie. But for Ajmer-born businessman Kul Pradeep Singh and his family, this is an everyday reality —  their house is built atop a 40-foot mango tree ! This three-storey treehouse has two bedrooms, a kitchen, a library and a living area, and is located in Udaipur. “The area where our treehouse stands is known for its fruit trees. People used to sell these fruits from over 4,000 trees for a living. But due to an increase in population, they started cutting the trees down,” he explains. The pleasure of nature’s company In 1999, Singh was in search of a plot in Udaipur, and had decided that he wouldn’t harm any trees in this area. “When I told a property dealer to...

  Who Is Devendra Jhajharia, the Olympic Gold Medallist India Forgot J avelin thrower Devendra Jhajaria epitomises an invincible spirit. The now  40-year-old  track athlete has always perceived the glass half full, bringing home one laurel after the other despite unimaginable challenges. Jhajharia is the only Indian to have ever won two gold medals at any Olympic or Paralympic games – one at the 2004 Athens Paralympics and another at the 2016 Rio Paralympics. He has held a world record (62.15m in javelin throw) and is the first para-athlete to be given the prestigious Padma Shri.  In 2004, he was also awarded the Arjuna Award for his contribution to the field of sports in the country. But what makes all these feats even more spectacular is the fact that he achieved them with one arm. Sharing what inspired him, the great Paralympian had told  India Times , “When I looked around I saw so many people who didn’t have both arms or both legs and I thought I was ...