Interesting, fun facts: 05/01/2009

maandag 11 mei 2009

What a dedicated horse statue in a park tells about the person on it

If there is a Horse Statue in the park dedicated to somebody who has died, there is a way of knowing how they died. If the horse has its two front legs in the air with the man of its back, then the man died in the war. If the horse has only one front leg up with the man on his back then the person died of injuries due to a war. But, if the horse has all four legs on the ground with the person on his back, then that person died of natural causes

zondag 3 mei 2009

Euglena's have plant and animal features

Euglena are a common group of unicellular protists, of the class Euglenoidea of the phylum Euglenophyta. They are single-celled organisms. Currently, over 1000 species of Euglena have been described. Marin et al. (2003) revised the genus to include several species without chloroplasts, formerly classified as Astasia and Khawkinea. Euglena sometimes can be considered to have both plant and animal features.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglena

A stick standing up in water looks bended or broken because light travels faster in water

A stick standing up in water looks bended or broken because light travels faster in water

book: waarom daarom!

zaterdag 2 mei 2009

Mark Twain invented the self pasting scrapbook in 1872

send in by: @perseid88

Mark Twain was a lifelong creator and keeper of scrapbooks. He took them with him everywhere and filled them with souvenirs, pictures, and articles about his books and performances. But in time, he grew tired of the lost glue, rock-hard paste, and the swearing that resulted from the standard scrapbook process. So, he came up with the idea of printing thin strips of glue on the pages to make updates neat and easy to do. In 1872, he patented his “self-pasting” scrapbook, and by 1901, at least 57 different types of his albums were available. It would be his only invention that ever made money. Inspired by his invention, this interactive scrapbook tells Twain’s life story through a collection of texts, photos, illustrations, and clippings from his day. To begin exploring, click one of the chapters to the right.

http://www.pbs.org/marktwain/scrapbook/index.html

The Arctic Terns migration is the longest regular migration known

The Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea) is a seabird of the tern family Sternidae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, breeding colonially in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and North America (as far south as Brittany and Massachusetts). The species is strongly migratory, seeing two summers each year as it migrates from its northern breeding grounds to the oceans around Antarctica and back (about 24,000 miles) each year. This is the longest regular migration by any known animal. The arctic tern flies as well as glides through the air, performing almost all of its tasks in the air. The arctic tern lands once every one to three years (depending on their mating cycle) to nest; once they have finished nesting they take to the sky for another long southern migration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterna_paradisaea

A tiny animal called Hydra doesnt age

Hydra is a genus of simple fresh-water animals possessing radial symmetry. Hydras are predatory animals belonging to the phylum Cnidaria and the class Hydrozoa. They can be found in most unpolluted freshwater ponds, lakes and streams in the temperate and tropical regions by gently sweeping a collecting net through weedy areas. They are usually a few millimeters long and are best studied with a microscope. Biologists are especially interested in hydras due to their regenerative ability and because they appear to undergo senescence (aging) very slowly, if at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(genus)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality#Hydra

The largest know pearl weights 6.4kg

The largest pearl known, was found in the Philippines in 1934. It is a naturally-occurring, non-nacreous, calcareous concretion from a giant clam. Because it did not grow in a pearl oyster it is not pearly, instead it has a porcellaneous surface. In other words, it is glossy like a china plate. Other pearls from giant clams are known to exist, but this is a particularly large one. The pearl weighs 14 lb (6.4 kg) and was supposedly first discovered by an anonymous Filipino Muslim diver off the island of Palawan in 1934. According to the legend as it is currently told, a Palawan chieftain gave the pearl to Wilbur Dowell Cobb in 1936 as a gift for having saved the life of his son. The pearl had been named the "Pearl of Allah" by the Muslim tribal chief, because it resembled a turbaned head. Another even more elaborate legend says that this object is actually the Pearl of Lao-Tzu, a cultured pearl created with a carved amulet and then supposedly progressively grafted into several giant clams, before supposedly being lost due to a shipwreck in 1745. ^[6] This legend has been discredited, however because this pearl is indeed the product of a giant clam, Tridacna gigas, which cannot be grafted. The pearl is also a whole pearl, not a mabe pearl, and whole pearl culturing technology is only 100 years old. ^[7]

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearls#Creation_of_a_pearl}

vrijdag 1 mei 2009

Mexican jumping beans jump because of a larva inside

After the egg has hatched, the larva eats away the inside of the bean, making a hollow for itself. It attaches itself to the bean with many silk threads.

The larva may live for months inside the bean with varying periods of dormancy. If the larva has adequate conditions such as moisture, it will live long enough to go into a pupal stage. Normally in the spring, the moth will force its way out of the bean through a round "trap door", leaving behind the pupal casing. The small, silver and gray-colored moth will live for only a few days.

The beans jump as a survival measure in order to protect the larvae from the heat, which can cause them to dry out. The ultraviolet rays from the sun stimulate them to jump, even in cool temperatures, but leaving them in the sun for extended periods will dehydrate and kill them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_jumping_bean

Lake Baikal is the largest fresh water lake in the world

At 1,637 meters (5,370 ft), Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world,^[4] and the largest freshwater lake in the world by volume.^[5] However, Lake Baikal contains less than one third the amount of water as the Caspian Sea, which is the largest lake in the world. Like Lake Tanganyika, Lake Baikal was formed in an ancient rift valley and therefore, is long and crescent-shaped with a surface area (31,494 km²/12,160 sq mi), less than that of Lake Superior or Lake Victoria. Baikal is home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, two thirds of which can be found nowhere else in the world^[6] and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.^[7] At more than 25 million years old, it is the oldest lake in the world.^[5]

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikal_Lake}

Termites use protozoa (a micro-organism) to digest wood

All termites eat cellulose in its various forms as plant fibre. Cellulose is a rich energy source (as demonstrated by the amount of energy released when wood is burned), but remains difficult to digest. Termites rely primarily upon symbiotic protozoa (metamonads) such as Trichonympha, and other microbes in their gut to digest the cellulose for them and absorb the end products for their own use. Gut protozoa, such as Trichonympha, in turn rely on symbiotic bacteria embedded on their surfaces to produce some of the necessary digestive enzymes. This relationship is one of the finest examples of mutualism among animals. Most so called "higher termites", especially in the Family Termitidae, can produce their own cellulase enzymes. However, they still retain a rich gut fauna and primarily rely upon the bacteria. Due to closely related bacterial species, it is strongly presumed that the termites' gut flora are descended from the gut flora of the ancestral wood-eating cockroaches, like those of the genus Cryptocercus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termites

Many smalls spider use silk threads for ballooning (drift away on the wind)

Many small spiders use silk threads for ballooning, the scientific term for the dynamic kiting ^[1] ^[2] spiderlings (mostly) use for dispersal. They extrude several threads into the air and let themselves become carried away with upward winds. Although most rides will end a few meters later, it seems to be a common way for spiders to invade islands. Many sailors have reported that spiders have been caught in their ship's sails, even when far from land.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballooning_(spider)

The Texas leafcutter ant cultivates fungus

The Atta texana, is a fungus-farming ant species chiefly found in Texas and Louisiana in the U.S.. It can also be found in a few northeastern states of Mexico. ^[1] It harvests leaves from over 200 types of plants and is considered a major pest to the state's agricultural interests, as it can defoliate a citrus tree in less than 24 hours. Every colony has several queens and up to 2 million workers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_leafcutter_ant

trees can produce various fruits as long as they belong to the same race and be carefully modeled

trees can produce various fruits as long as they belong to the same race and be carefully modeled

book: waarom daarom!

In some countries cormorants are trained by fisherman to catch fish

Humans have historically exploited cormorants' fishing skills, in China, Japan, and Macedonia, where they have been trained by fishermen. A snare is tied near the base of the bird's throat, which allows the bird only to swallow small fish. When the bird captures and tries to swallow a large fish, the fish is caught in the bird's throat. When the bird returns to the fisherman's raft, the fisherman helps the bird to remove the fish from its throat. The method is not as common today, since more efficient methods of catching fish have been developed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormorant

Interesting, fun facts