Category Plants & Animals

Do you know how snake’s poison works?

The real master of venom is snakes. Man has come to know them even since he first appeared on the earth and has learned to hate and fear them; it is a hatred and fear that takes in all slithering crawling creatures, even if they are quite harmless.

The instinct that makes us shun these animals is a wise one for in many parts of the world there are a large number of dangerous and venomous snakes. Their venom varies from species to species and acts in many different ways; some can act on the blood, making it thicken or go thinner. Usually the effect of snake venom is rapid and leads to partial or total paralysis of the body. Death is usually caused by asphyxia.

In snakes the venom is a kind of salvia which often runs through special fangs that have a hollow passage in them. There are some snakes which do not have venom fangs but their bite is still poisonous. The only poisonous snake in Europe is the viper, also known as the adder, of which there are many varieties.

Snakes are very considerably in size, from the small Syrian thread snake to the tropical pythons which can grow to a length of 10 meters.

 

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What is the eating style of ant-eater?

The body of the ant-eater is covered in long hair that prevents ants from reaching its skin. For this reason it has no cause to fear insect bites when it tears the homes of ants apart with its strong claws.

The ant-eater makes its meal by shooting out its long, sticky, worm-like tongue and scooping up the ants that swarm all over the ground after their home has been destroyed. It has highly developed salivary glands which secrete the sticky substance that coats its tongue and traps the insects.

 

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Did fish live in the desert?

Although it is difficult to believe, there are fish living in the desert. Several important expeditions have gone to the Sahara to uncover the mystery of these fish which are sometimes found scores of metres down.

The most famous is the lungfish which in the larger African rivers. When these rivers overflow their waters can spread out to desert regions to form small lakes or ponds. When the lake dries up the lungfish buries itself in wet mud where it can live for months on end, especially if it goes deep enough to find an underground layer of water.

Lungfish are among the most ancient bony fishes and are very like those which lived 200 million years ago, at the beginning of the Mesozoic Era.

 

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How the date palm manages to live in the desert?

There is a Bedouin saying which states that a date palm must have ‘its feet in water and its head in the sun’. for this reason the date palm is a typical tree of the desert oases.

Its roots dig very deeply into the soil until they find an underground store of water which gives rise to an oasis, that island of water and vegetation in the vast wastes of the desert. The palm needs a great deal of sunshine to grow vigorously and this explains the second part of the Bedouin saying.

A fully grown date palm tree stands more than 20 metres high. It has a slender trunk with a tuft of leaves at the top. Under these leaves there grow clusters of flowers which produce the berries that we know as dates. They have a sweet flesh and contain only one seed. A single larger branch of the tree may carry more than 1,000 dates weighing about 10 kilogrammes.

The date palm is very important in the life of desert people. This is not just because of its fruit but for every part of the tree. The wood from the trunk is used in building; the leaves are dried and make thatch roofs for huts as well as mats and ropes; the sap of the tree can be made into an alcoholic drink; and the seeds or stones of the date can be ground to make a beverage like coffee.

Date sugar, which is produced in India, is obtained from the sap of the Phoenix Sylvester’s, which is closely related to the date palm.

 

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What is advanced animal science?

To establish how effective a drug is it must be tested carefully and accurately and its effect on a living organism meticulously studied and noted. This is the task 0- pharmacology, a science -which has made tremendous advances in less than a century.

The work of pharmacologists is often related to biochemistry, since they study the effects of foreign substances on cells or chemical systems of the body; and to psychiatry, for they also study the effects of drugs on the brain and behaviour.

The most significant stage in the discovery of a new drug is when the active substance that has curative properties is isolated. These substances are then checked for the effect they have on living tissues. This could be dangerous on a human being and even the curative properties of an) drug can prove fatal if they are administered in wrong doses.

To overcome these difficulties scientists carry out their experiments on animals such as dogs, cats, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits and monkeys. Many such animals an sacrificed daily in the laboratories of the world, although most countries have strict laws which forbid the infliction of unnecessary pain on them.

One of the most common experiments is to infect these operations that can be carried out only by skilled craftsmen who pass on their art from one generation to the next.

Not all diamonds can be cut and transformed into elegant stones, The more impure ones and fragments obtained from cutting gems are used in industry, Diamonds are extremely hard and are valuable in cutting or polishing the hardest of metallic alloys.

Another precious stone that is extremely rare and very valuable is the emerald which is a beautiful green colour. Emeralds are usually small. When one is larger than ten carats and free from impurities and faults it is much more valuable than a diamond of the same size. Much of the value of these gems depends on the way they have been cut. The usual way is to cut surfaces or facets on them so that they will refract or break up the light that passes through the stone, The effect is La produce a number of small prisms which breakup me light into the rainbow, Great skill is necessary at every stage of diamond cutting, but especially during faceting, as the angles of the facets must be exact to give the maximum amount of brilliance and to preserve symmetry of the stone.

There are the various ways in which gem stones can be cut: (1) marquise; (2) drop or pendeloque; (3) briolette; (4a) resecut, seen from above; (4b) resecut seen from the side; (5a) flat cabochon, seen from the side; (5b) double cabochon, seen from the side; (6a) brilliant cut, seen from above; (6b) brilliant seen from bottom; (6c) brilliant, side view; (7a) step cut, seen from above; (7b) step cut, seen from bottom; (7c) step cut, side view.

The upper part of the faceted gem is called the crown and the lower is called the base or pavilion.

 

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How penguins hatch their eggs?

During the mating season penguins gather together by the tens of thousands along the coasts of Antarctica. The female penguins lay one or two eggs which they place in a hollow in the ground. They take turns with the male penguin to sit on the eggs, clutching them tightly between their legs and their downy stomachs.

With the eggs covered like this, the penguins can still move from place to place although they look extremely odd when they do so. When the female is sitting on the eggs, the male bird feeds her. He continues to do so for a time after the young birds are hatched.

There are seventeen species of penguins. They vary in height from 40 centimeters to more than a metre. They all live in the southern hemisphere and go on long migratory swims to escape severely cold weather.

 

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