Category Science

What makes the blue whale incredible?

Can you imagine a creature longer than three buses, heavier than 33 elephants, with blood vessels so gigantic that you could swim around in them, a heart as big as a car and a tongue as heavy as a pick-up truck? This creature has the unique distinction of being the largest animal EVER to have lived on Earth. Meet the blue whale.

This blue-grey leviathan weighs a whopping 130,000 kg and can grow over 33 m long! It has a long, streamlined body, powerful tail, small dorsal fin and yellowish underside, giving it the nickname ‘sulphur bottom’ whale. Considering its enormous size, one would imagine it to be a top predator with brutal, fearsome teeth to shred its victims, but the blue whale is a gentle giant that feeds mainly on tiny shrimp-like crustaceans called krill.

The blue whale is also called baleen whale because it has unique fibrous plates called ‘baleen’ plates instead of teeth in its mouth. While eating, the blue whale gulps a huge amount of water into its mouth and then expels it back out through these baleen plates which act like hairy nets that capture the krill within. It can eat up to 4000 kilograms of krill every day!

Interestingly the blue whale is not only the largest animal on Earth but also the loudest! Its call may be heard for hundreds of kilometres around!

Sadly, this powerful, yet peaceful creature has been hunted almost to extinction.

Picture Credit : Google 

WHAT IS VAN DER WAALS SPEAKERS?

The Van der Waals speaker aims to create an audio-visual experience by combining sound with an engaging visual display. The Bluetooth 5.1, USB-C speaker, named after Dutch physicist and Nobel laureate Johannes Diderik van der Waals, displays a 9-inch ferromagnetic visualizer. Ferromagnetic fluid or ferrofluid was a magnetic fluid developed by NASA for rocket ships to control fuel in zero gravity. As the song plays, the vibrations agitate the inky ferrofluid, causing it to change shape accordingly and create a mesmerizing audio display. Paired with 2x15W mid bass speakers and 2x15W tweeters, the speaker can also be paired with another in a stereo configuration. Housed in a tempered glass globe with anodized aluminium, the speaker’s LED lights create a contrasting backdrop for the ferrofluid to dance to your favourite songs.

The speaker produces crisp, clear sound thanks to a quality build that incorporates the latest in audio technology. Four speakers that comprise two tweeters and two mid-bass speakers ensure great sound quality. Furthermore, the team used components from two wireless and audio tech leaders: Qualcomm and Texas Instruments. Van der Waals connects via Bluetooth 5.1 and supports SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, and aptX Adaptive. It comes with a USB-C cable and works well on either its own or in a system of multiple speakers. Launched through Kickstarter, the Van der Waals speaker had surpassed the initial goal about 13 times over at the time of writing.

Credit : Gessato

Picture Credit : Google 

WHO WAS CHARLES DARWIN?

Charles Darwin was an English scientist who proposed that evolution happened through ‘natural selection’. According to Darwin, the organisms that lived on are those which had the best traits to survive their environment, and passed on those traits to following generations.

Charles Robert Darwin, (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution.

The Theory of Evolution by natural selection was first formulated in Charles Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species” published in 1859. In his book, Darwin describes how organisms evolve over generations through the inheritance of physical or behavioral traits, as National Geographic explains. The theory starts with the premise that within a population, there is variation in traits, such as beak shape in one of the Galapagos finches Darwin studied.

According to the theory, individuals with traits that enable them to adapt to their environments will help them survive and have more offspring, which will inherit those traits. Individuals with less adaptive traits will less frequently survive to pass them on. Over time, the traits that enable species to survive and reproduce will become more frequent in the population and the population will change, or evolve, according to BioMed Central. Through natural selection, Darwin suggested, genetically diverse species could arise from a common ancestor.

Credit: Live Science

Picture Credit: Google

HOW ARE FOSSILS FORMED?

When a plant or animal is buried quickly, it gets enclosed in sediment before it decomposes. As pressure transforms this sediment into rock, a hollow mould of the organism is formed. Gradually minerals seep into this hollow and harden over time to form a detailed, three-dimensional cast. Soft tissue organisms are preserved as impressions between layers of sediment. Perfectly preserved fossils of insects and other small forms of life have also been found trapped inside hardened tree sap.

The most common way an animal such as a dinosaur fossilises is called petrification. These are the key steps:

1. The animal dies.

2. Soft parts of the animal’s body, including skin and muscles, start to rot away. Scavengers may come and eat some of the remains.

3. Before the body disappears completely, it is buried by sediment – usually mud, sand or silt. Often at this point only the bones and teeth remain.

4. Many more layers of sediment build up on top. This puts a lot of weight and pressure onto the layers below, squashing them. Eventually, they turn into sedimentary rock.

5. While this is happening, water seeps into the bones and teeth, turning them to stone as it leave behind minerals.

This process can take thousands or even millions of years.

Credit: Natural History Museum

Picture Credit: Learning Geology

WHY DOES A PENCIL APPEAR BENT IN WATER?

When a pencil is put in a glass of water, it would appear bent because of refraction of light. Refraction is the bending of light as it passes from one transparent substance into another. Light waves can’t travel as quickly in water as it does in the air. Hence they bend around the pencil, causing the pencil to look bent in the water. Further, the light refraction gives the pencil a slight magnifying effect, which makes the angle appear bigger, causing the pencil to look bent. It all has to do with the fact that light travels more slowly in water than it does in air, and that causes the light to bend when it goes from water to air, or vice versa. How the light bends depends on the shape of the water surface and the angle at which the light hits it.

It is the same “magnifying lens” phenomenon that makes things look fatter when viewed through a glass of water. In that case, the fattening effect is doubled, because the beam of light widens both when it enters the water through a curved surface and when it leaves through the other side.

Credit : Orlando sentinel

Picture Credit : Google 

What is StoryShots: Book Summaries app?

Can’t get through your list of must-read books? Use StoryShots to learn the key takeaways of bestselling, non fiction books in minutes instead of never. Enjoy takeaways from hundreds of bestsellers; each on average 15 minutes long. Read at your own pace, listen to podcasts/audiobooks at the same time or watch an animation (if you’re a visual learner) for every book in categories such as leadership, self improvement, productivity, habits, health, history, philosophy, science, mindfulness and relationships, among others. Find an interesting book? Order it on Amazon from inside the app. Free on iOS and Android for basic features, with a subscription option for extras like highlighting, offline reading, etc.

Picture Credit : Google