Fact U Ever Wanted to Know!: 10/06/14

Monday 6 October 2014

How do mushrooms grow so fast?

Mushrooms belongs to a unique group of living things called fungi. They consist of a network of hair-like threads called hyphae, which spread unseen through soil.When the conditions are right, hyphae push upwards out of the soil with incredible speed to form a mushroom.

Are bacteria important?

Bacteria are the most plentiful living organisms on the planet. They are also the smallest, each consisting of a simple, single cell. A few types of bacteria, often called germs, cause disease in humans. But most bacteria are harmless,and some are very useful, including those used in making foods and drugs.

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Dienocoous radiodurans must be the most resilient bacteria.It can withstand blistering heat, bitter cold, drying out, high radiation levels, and being doused in strong acids.

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Who ruled the world after the dinos died out?

Sixty-five million years ago, a mass extinction wiped out the dinosaurs.Mammals had been around since the Jurassic Period. Living alongside the dominant dinosaurs, they were just a small group of tiny, rodent-like creatures. When the dinos died out, so did many of the mammals,but the survivors evolved to become the most successful type of animals around.

Whats are rocks made of?

Every type of rocks has its own "recipe" of one or more minerals. There are about 4,000 minerals found on Earth, each with its own unique shape and colour. Earth's rocks are like buried treasure - they are full of valuable minerals and contain metals, gemstones, fossils, and fuels, such as coal and gas.

Is a coral reef animal, vegetable, or mineral?

It's animal, vegetable, and mineral ! A coral reef is a colony of millions of tiny animals called polyps. As they grow, each polyps produces a hard, limestone skeleton, on which the next generation of polyps grow. Corals also contain an algae, which is essential for their survival.

Will the Sun shine for ever?

The Sun is a star – a vast sphere of luminous gas. Its light is a by-product of gas-fuelled nuclear reactions in its core. It shines steadily now, but in about five billion years it will swell up before dying as a cold, dark cinder in space.

Which planet is the biggest?

Jupiter is the biggest and is truly giant. It is large enough for 11 Earths to fit across its face and 1,300 to fit inside it. There are four giant planets in our solar system. The next biggest is Saturn, followed by Uranus, and Neptune. They are also known as “gas giants” because of their colourful, ice-cold gas atmospheres.

Are all stars the same?

No, every star is unique. With the exception of the Sun,stars are all so far away from Earth that they appear as pinpoints of twinkling light to us. But even though they may look the same to the naked eye, they all have their own characteristics, differing in size, temperature, colour, and brightness, depending on how old they are.

Universe

How old is the Universe?

The universe is about 13.7 billion years old. At its beginning it looked nothing like it does today. Yet, everything in today's Universe did exist in some form back then. It all started with the Big Bang, a kind of explosion that would not only go on to produce all the matter in the Universe but also marked the start of time.

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Creation of Universe!

01. At the start, the Universe was a hot and dense ball of radiation energy.

02. In one-thousandth of a second, tiny radiation particles produced tiny particles of matter. These combined to form the first ever chemical elements, hydrogen and helium.

03. Some regions of the young Universe contained slightly more hydrogen and helium than others. These shrank to form the first stars.

04.Nuclear reactions inside the stars produced many other chemical elements, including carbon and oxygen.

05. The elements in the Universe today were produced from elements created in the Big Bang.

BATS

With almost 1,000 species bats are the second largest order of mammals after the rodents. They are the only mammals that can truly fly. The name given to their order is Chiroptera, meaning "hand wings". When bats are resting, they hang upside-down.Most bats are nocturnal. They eat a variety of food, which they find either by scent and sight, as fruit bats do, or by using sound waves,a peocess called echolocation, as insect eating bats do.

Bats are divided into two groups.These are the Megachiroptera or Megabats, which are the old world fruit bats and the Microchiroptera or Microbats, someimes called insect-eating bats.

Megabats

Fruit bats or megabats, are also sometimes called Flying foxes. They live in the tropical and subtropical parts of Africa, Asia and Australasia. Most megabats eat fruits, nectar and pollen.

Microbats

The term insect-eaing bats is a misleading name for these bats. Many feed on fruits, meat, fish, pollen, and even blood, as well as insects. Microbats live in both temperate and tropical regions, but in cooler climates they hibernate or migrate for the winter.

Animals

More than a million and a half species of animal have been identified, and there are many millions more yet to be discovered. Animals are living organisms found in nearly all of the Earth's habitats, including the depths of the oceans, the freezing Arctic, and even inside other animals and plants. The animal kingdom is divided into animals without backbones (invertebrates),such as snails and lobsters, and animals with backbones (vertebrates), such as frogs and monkeys. Invertebrates make up 97 per cent of all animal species.

Australin Lyrebirds

Australian Lyrebirds

Australin Lyrebirds are fantastic mimics. They copy not only other bird songs to attract mates, but also mobile phone ring tunes, camera shutters, chainsaws, crying babies, barking dogs, and even car alarms.

Record Breaker!!!

Ostrich

The ostrich is the biggest bird, growing to a height of 2.7 m (9 ft). It also lays the biggest egg, up to 18 cm (7 in) long, and is the fastest runner, reaching speeds of up to 72 kph (45 mph).

Why do birds have feathers?

Feathers help to kepp birds warm and enable to fly. Their wings are equipped with stiff flight feathers to provide both lift and ,when then wings are flapped, forward thrust to propel these masters of flight through the air.Something else common to all birds is they lay eggs will hard shells.

Do snakes feel slimy?

No, their scaly skin feels cool and dry, a features snakes share with other reptiles including lizards, turtles, and crocodiles. Reptiles have backbones and are cold-blooded. This means they rely on the Sun’s heat to warm them up. Most reptiles lay eggs with waterproof shells , although some snakes give birth to live young.

Spitting Cobra

A snake that you should definitely avoid is the spitting cobra, which can open its mouth and squirt venom droplets into the air from tiny oprnnings in its fangs.This venom can cover a distance of 2 m (6.5 ft), and if the venom spray hits a predator’s eyes it can cause permanent blindness.They also bite!

Top five most deadly snakes!

If you want to aviod the snakes with the deadliest poison, don't go to Australia !

01.Taipan

(Australia)The most poisonous snake in the world , prey is paralyzed the instant it is bitten.

02.Brown Snake

(Australia)Though less poisonous, the brown snake is

more common than the taipan.

03.Tiger Snake

(Australia)Just to confuse you,this snakes sometimes

has stripes, but often does not.

04.Beaked Sea Snake

(Arabian sea to coast of northern Australia)Will attack

and bite divers if disturbed.

05.Malayan Krait Snake

(Southeast Asia and Indonesia) This snake is slow to

strike, but its poison can be fatal.

Facts!

6,000: The number of lightning flashes around the world each minute

21: The number of people killed by the same lightning bolt when it struck a hut in Zimbabwe in 1975.

730: The average number of tornadoes each year in the USA, casuing more than 100 deaths annually.

44,000: The number of storms that can rumble over the Earth each day.

190 km: (120 miles) The length of the longest lightning bolt ever recorded.

Fast Facts: Clouds

1. Clouds form when warmair rises.

2. High in the sky, invisible water vapour in the warm air cools and turns into water droplets.

3. High-level clouds float at 12,000 m (40,000 ft) ,while clouds that touch the ground create fog and mist.

4. An average cloud weights as much as a jumbo jet, but luckily this weight is spread out over a large area!

Global Warming

v Earth’s climate is heating up faster than ever before.

v Most scientists believe this is due to a build-up of gases in the atmosphere.These are gases produced by power stations, factories, and cars that trap heat around the Earth.

v If the polar ice caps melt on a large scale, sea levels will rise, putting at risk islands such as the Maidives, which lie only 1 m (3.2 ft) above sea level.

v Global warming may also cause more extreme weather, such as storms, droughts, and hurricanes.

Five Ways to Predict the Weather!

In the past, farmers and sailors used natural signs to predict the weather...

Hang a piece of dry seaweed up - when rain is on the way it will feel sticky.

Your hair is longer on a damp day bacause it takes in water from the air and expands!

Look out for the storm petrel, a sea bird that flies inshore when a storm is on its way.

Oak and maple trees have leaves that curl when the humidity is very high and the wind is blowing strongly, both signs that a storm is coming.

There's a saying that,

"When chairs squeak, it's about rain they speak"

Because, wooden chair's absorbs moisture from the air, causing them to squeak.

Why does the wind blow?

The Earth's weather is casued by the Sun heating the atmosphere, oceans , and Earth's surface. The hot air rises, and the cool air sinks and all this activity gets air moving across the globe. The Sun also eavporates water in lakes, rivers, and seas to make clouds and rain.

Forest Fires

Fires can sweep through forests causing huge devastation to trees,plants,and animals life.However they can also help regenerate a habitat by clearing the area for new growth and leaving a layer of rich ash where new seeds will flourish.The main causes of forest fires are these: