Meghalaya: Average annual rainfall: 11,777mm

1. In a scene played out every weekday morning, students of the RCLP School in Nongsohphan Village, Meghalaya, India, cross a bridge grown from the roots of a rubber tree. In the relentless damp of Meghalaya's jungles, wooden structures rot away too quickly to be practical. For centuries the Khasi people have instead used the trainable roots of rubber trees to "grow" bridges over the region's rivers.
 
2. The village of Mawsynram, claiming to have the highest average rainfall on Earth. Perched atop a ridge in the Khasi Hills of India's northeast, the village receives 467 inches of rain per year - thirteen times that of Seattle. The heavy rainfall is due to summer air currents sweeping over the steaming floodplains of Bangladesh, gathering moisture as they move north. When the resulting clouds hit the steep hills of Meghalaya they are "squeezed" through the narrowed gap in the atmosphere and compressed to the stage they can no longer hold their moisture, causing the near constant rain the village is famous for.


3. Rain hammering down on a roof in the village on July 6, 2014. In the two peak monsoon months of June and July Mawsynram is hit with an average 275 Inches of rain - New York receives 60 inches in a year.

4. The weather station on the outskirts of Mawsynram. Measurements from the station are taken monthly, but by the end of 2014 an automated digital measurement system will replace this station.


5. Three laborers walk into Mawsynram under the traditional Khasi umbrellas known as knups. Made from bamboo and banana leaf, the knups are favored for allowing two-handed work, and for being able to stand up to the high winds which lash the region during heavy rainstorms.


 
6. An elderly Khasi woman is the first arrival to Sunday mass in Mawsynram's Catholic church. Around 70% of Khasi are Christian, largely due to the Reverend Thomas Jones who, in 1841 clambered up into the hills from the plains of Bangladesh and established the region's first church in the neighboring town of Cherrapunji.
 
7. The entrance to Mawsynram Village. Like most villages in the Meghalaya region of India's northeast, the people here are Khasi, an indigenous minority numbering about 1.2 million within India.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friends and diamonds are forever, but did you know that, despite the fact we are told that diamonds are the hardest natural substance on earth, if you hit a diamond hard enough with a hammer, it will shatter into tiny pieces?  Diamonds were formed deep beneath the earths crust billions of years ago and they are brought to the surface by volcanoes. They are made of pure carbon with just a few impurities that give some diamonds their colour. They are rare, they are beautiful, and they have been sought after and revered for thousands of years. 

1. The largest diamond ever found weighed 1.33 pounds.
The largest diamond ever found weighed in at a whopping 1.33 pounds, or 3,106 carats. It was discovered in South Africa in 1905 and given by the South Africans to King Edward of England. The diamond was cut into nine large diamonds, one of which is now a part of the Crown jewels of England.
2. Diamonds are found all around the world.
Most people know about the diamond mines of South Africa and the giant DeBeers mining corporation, but diamonds are actually mined all around the world. The world’s first main source of diamonds was India and diamonds and some of the world’s most brilliant diamond’s now come from Botswana, Canada, Russia and Namibia.
3. Diamonds are rare, but not as a rare as you think.

Although you are unlikely to stumble across one in your back garden, there are more diamonds on the earth than you realise. The fact is that the big diamond miners, like DeBeers, stockpile diamonds so that they remain rare and that keeps the price high. If they released all the diamonds they have in stock today, the price of diamond jewellery would plummet.
4. Diamonds come in lots of different colours.
The clear, or white, diamonds are the ones that most people are familiar with, but diamonds actually do come if a range of different colours. The colours are caused by tiny amounts of impurities in the stones and you can find diamonds in just about every colour that you could think of.
5. Most diamonds that are mined are used in industry.
By far the majority of diamonds that are mined do not find their way onto jewellery, they are used in industrial processes for things like drill bits and abrasives. That was also the case when diamonds were first discovered by humans. In China, diamonds were used over 4,500 years ago to polish ceremonial axes to a mirror like finish. Today, more than 80% of the diamonds extracted from the ground are used for industrial purposes.
6. There is a diamond star.
Astronomers have discovered a star that they believe is just one huge diamond. Named after the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, the star is made of crystallised carbon, and is located in the Centaurus constellation of the Milky Way. If scientists are right about this star, then it’s one big diamond because it would weigh-in at 10 billion trillion trillion carats!
7. Diamonds are not the hardest substance on the planet.
Jewellers love to tell you that diamonds are the hardest substance on earth, but they are wrong. There are at least three substances that can scratch a diamond, including Rhenium Diboride, Ultrahard Fullerite and Aggregated Diamond Nanorods. The diamond is, however, still the hardest naturally occurring mineral on the planet, as far as we know.
8. Diamond engagement rings are nothing more than a marketing ploy.
Diamond engagement rings are not used because they have a century’s long tradition of being used as a sign of eternal love. Far from it, diamond engagement rings only become popular in the 1930s, when DeBeers hired an advertising agency to promote the sales of diamonds. The advertising agency undertook a huge advertising campaign to make diamonds the preferred gem for engagement rings and that’s the only real reason why diamonds are still so popular in engagement rings.
9. Diamonds are no good as investments.
 
If you are looking for something to invest money in that will appreciate in value, diamonds are definitely not the best choice. The price of diamonds is artificially controlled by the big diamond companies, so the price remains relatively stable all the time. With diamonds, there are also two distinct prices; the retail price and the wholesale price, so it is very unlikely you would ever be able to sell a diamond ring for more than you bought it for.
10. Why are diamonds measured in carats?