Why children are thrown from the hight of 15 meters in India?

In some of the Indian villages there is an old tradition of throwing new born babies form the top of the tower. For example, in the village Musti, Maharatsha state, new born babies are thrown from the hight of 15 meters. They explain that this ritual will bring them health and strength.

SOURCE: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/01/babies.tower/
IMAGE: www.anvari.org

Which ancient ruler has ancestors from half of the Western Europe's men population?

The DNA tests of King Tutankhamun, who lived more than three thousand years ago, showed that he belongs to a genetic haplogroup R1b1a2. Half of the population of Western Europe's men have the same haplogroup, in case of UK more than 70% of men are from R1b1a2 group. This means that they all had the same ancestor with Tutankhamun. Interestingly enough, only 1% of the population of Egyptian men population belongs to that DNA group.

IMAGE: lowerhouse.ik.org
SOURCE: http://af.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idAFTRE7704OR20110801

Could a person have no fingerprints?

A very rare mutation in the gene SMARCAD1 could result dermatoglyphic error - a genetic error, which results the absence of fingerprints. There are only 4 families in the world that had been registered with such a case, a man in Switzerland failed to pass though the customs check, because she failed to pass the fingerprint analyses. 

IMAGE: danchristensen.blogspot.com

SOURCE: http://www.science20.com/news_articles/adermatoglyphia_no_fingerprints_disease_linked_smarcad1_gene-82762

Why Chinese girls till the beginning of the 20th century bandaged their feet?

In aristocratic families in China till the beginning of the 20th century, it was common the case of bandaging girl's feet. All the toes, but the big were tied to foot, after time the foot was deformed so much that woman couldn't walk at all. It was considered to be a good quality, since women from the aristocratic families didn't need to walk all the job was supposed to be done by their workers.

IMAGE: www.wikipedia.org
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding

Which plants help bats to find themselves?

Some of the bats prefer nectar of plants, which plants use them for its own pollination. However for bats it is very complicated to locate some of the flowers, because they have a bad vision and only rely on echo-location. The plant named Marcgravia evenia has leaves of special form that have the shape of a plate, which allow bats to find them. Since this kind of shape allows the reflection of signals much more efficiently. 

IMAGE: frogstofall.f3h.com
SOURCE: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/07/how-to-invite-bats-for-dinner.html