CHEETAH World Fasters Mammal

CHEETAH

Order: Carnivora

Family: Felidae

Genus and Species: Acinonyx jubatus

THE WORLD'S FASTEST LAND MAMMAL IS VULNERABLE TO EXTINCTION THROUGHOUT ITS RANGE

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

 Built more like greyhounds than typical cats, cheetahs are adapted for brief but intense bursts of speed. They have wiry bodies and small heads. Their coats are golden or yellowish, embellished with many small black spots, and their tails are long with a few black bands and sometimes a white tip. Black stripes run from their eyes down to the corners of their mouths.

SIZE

Cheetahs grow to between three and a half and four and a half feet long, not including their 30-inch tails. They weigh between 75 and 145 pounds and stand two to three feet tall at the shoulder. Males tend to be a bit more robust and weigh about ten pounds more than females.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION

Cheetahs live in small, isolated populations mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. They are very rare in southern Algeria and northern Niger, and range from Senegal east to Somalia and south to northern South Africa. A few have been reported from Iran. However, many of their strongholds are in eastern and southern African parks.

STATUS

The cheetah is listed as vulnerable on the World Conservation Union's (IUCN's) Red List of Threatened Animals.

HABITAT

Savannas, both open and more densely vegetated, give cheetahs the open areas they need for quick stalks and chases. They are not found in forest areas or wetlands.

NATURAL DIET

Cheetahs eat primarily hoofed mammals weighing less than 90 pounds, including gazelles and young wildebeest. They will also eat smaller game such as hares, warthogs, and birds.

NATIONAL ZOO DIET

The Zoo's cheetahs eat ground horse meat and sometimes beef, rabbits, and chicks.

REPRODUCTION

Cheetahs can breed at any time of year but tend to copulate in the dry season, with cubs being born at the onset of the wet season. Females reach breeding age by 21 or 22 months of age. Males live in small permanent groups called coalitions, which are usually made up of brothers. Males are drawn to females in heat, but only one male in a coalition usually mates with the selected female. On average, three cubs are born about three months after mating takes place. Until five or six weeks old, the cubs remain hidden; if she needs to move, the mother carries them from place to place. After five or six weeks, cubs follow their mothers and share her kills. Cheetah cubs wean at about three months old.

LIFE SPAN

In zoos, cheetahs may live up to 17 years; in the wild, they may live eight to ten years.

BEHAVIOR

Female cheetahs live alone, except when raising cubs. They rarely associate with other cheetahs, except when ready to mate. Males live in small permanent groups called coalitions, which are usually made up of two to four brothers. To avoid lions and leopards, cheetahs usually hunt in the middle of the day. Cheetahs stalk their prey, approaching to within about 50 feet before dashing out from cover and sprinting at the targeted animals. Cheetahs grab their victims' throats and suffocate their quarry within a few minutes. After securing their meal, they may drag it to nearby cover. Despite their best efforts to hide their catches, their kills are often stolen by larger predators and picked at by hordes of vultures. Lions and hyenas also eat cheetah cubs; lions and leopards also kill adults. 

PAST/PRESENT/FUTURE

Once widespread across arid Africa, into the Middle East and east to India, the cheetah has suffered dramatic declines over the last century. It now lives in Africa, and a few may survive in Iran. Hunted for their spotted coats and because they sometimes attack livestock, they disappeared from many areas. More recently, widespread habitat destruction has fragmented cheetah habitats, isolating many populations. In many areas, the cheetah's prey has been overhunted by people. Scientists have also found that many cheetahs suffer from genetic defects due to inbreeding, possibly the result of a population bottleneck—a sharp decline—that occurred perhaps as far back as 10,000 years ago. Among other things, inbreeding could raise cub mortality, lower cheetahs' resistance to disease, and cause infertility. An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 wild cheetahs survive. Cheetah strongholds, where possible, must be connected to allow genetic interchange if this species is to survive. Also, conflict between cheetahs and humans needs to be moderated. For example, in Namibia, ranchers may legally shoot cheetahs that prey on livestock.

FUN FACTS

A sprinting cheetah can reach 45 miles per hour within 2.5 seconds. Top speed—up to 64 miles per hour—can only be briefly sustained.

In the 16th century, emperors and other royalty hunted gazelles with trained cheetahs.

Source: http://nationalzoo.si.edu

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Time Travel

Time travel faster in the sky.

The denser the gravitational field, the slower the passage of time. That means that a second at lower altitudes (like at sea level) is actually nanoseconds longer than a second at higher altitudes (like in an airplane).

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Your brain is to blame !

When the second hand appears to take longer than a second to tick, your brain is to blame!

Brain imaging studies have shown that our perception of time stretches backwards when our eyes shift from one point to another. Our brains "fill in the gap," creating the illusion of an elongated second.

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Muphry's Law

Muphry's Law

Coined by John Bangsund in The Society of Editors Newsletter, 1992

"Muphry's Law is the editorial application of the better-known Murphy's Law. Muphry's Law dictates that

(a) if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written;

(b) if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book;

(c) the stronger the sentiment expressed in (a) and (b), the greater the fault;

(d) any book devoted to editing or style will be internally inconsistent."

(John Bangsund, "Muphry's Law." Society of Editors Newsletter, Mar. 1992)

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Amazing facts about Ants

Amazing facts about Ants

Some ants can support up to 100x their own weight upside down on glass.

The largest ant colony ever found was over 6000 Km or 3750 miles wide.

Ants are the longest living of all insects, living for up to 30 years.

One ant species owns the record for the fastest movement within the animal kingdom.

There are over 12,000, known different species of ants.

The ant is one of  the worlds’ strongest creature in relation to its size.

One ant species is the most venomous insect in the world.

Dozens of colonies of the worlds smallest ant could live in the brain case of the worlds largest ant.

Ants move an estimated 50 tons of soil per year in one square mile.

Fire ants cause an estimated $5 billion worth of damage in North America per year.

All worker, soldier and queen ants are female.

Some ant species are asexual, they clone themselves and do not require any males.

Ants and humans are the only creatures that farm other creatures.

Ants have two stomachs, one to hold food for themselves, and one for others.

Some ant species make slaves out of another ant species.

Ants can be found on every continent accept "Antarctica"

Some ants can swim.

Most ants can survive around 24 hours underwater.

Some ants have no eyes.

Some wingless ants can perform a controlled glide when free falling.

Ants sleep frequently and are often quite lazy.

In many parts of the world, ants are eaten by humans as a delicacy.

Ants worst enemies are not us, but other ants.

(Source: antark.net)

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All about Safety Matches.

Invention of Safety matches

The Swedish chemist and inventor Gustav Erik Pasch, invented the safety match in 1844, but it was not a big hit until the brothers Lundström in Jönköping developed it.

Swedish professor of chemistry, Gustaf Erik Pasch (1788-1862) invented the safety match in 1844. He was born in Norrköping and was studying medicine when he met the famous chemist, Jöns Jacob Berzelius. Pasch abandoned medicine and took up chemistry instead, under Berzelius’ guidance.

Sweden´s oldest match factory

In 1841, Pasch became joint owner in J.S. Bagge & Co.’s chemical factory for tinderboxes in Stockholm. The company had been established in 1836 and was the first match factory in Sweden. Here various types of matches were manufactured, modelled on foreign designs, along with Eau de Cologne, varnish and razor strops.

Red phosphorus

At the beginning of the 19th century, many countries experimented with a wide variety of lighting devices, mainly matches containing white phosphorus, which was poisonous. While he was at Bagge, Pasch came up with his ingenious idea of separating the phosphorus from the match head and applying it in a non-poisonous and less inflammable form (red phosphorus) on a special striking surface. Pasch took out a patent on his invention and, in October 1844, the first matches were made, but they were not a success. The matches were too expensive and the striking surface aged too quickly. Bagges factory was closed down in 1848 and the safety match was forgotten. The patent expired.

Jönköping, the match city

In 1845, two brothers, Johan Edvard and Carl Frans Lundström started the production of phosphorus matches in Jönköping. Three years later, they built Jönköping’s first match factory.

It was Johan Edvard Lundström, known as the father of industrial match production, who improved Pasch’s invention and was granted a patent for it. He presented the safety match as an innovation at the Paris Exhibition in 1855. The matches were in a specially designed sliding box with striking surfaces on the long sides of the box. The safety match was awarded a silver medal and people became interested in it.

The safety match conquers the world

The breakthrough for the safety match finally came when the young mechanic, Alexander Lagerman, was employed in 1870. He had constructed the first automatic match machine as early as 1864 and, during the following decades, he developed it until mechanisation was complete. This meant that the safety match became a high quality mass product at a low price.

Source: Tobaks & Tandsticks Museum

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NORTHERN LIGHTS

NORTHERN LIGHTS

The bright dancing lights of the aurora are actually collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth's atmosphere. The lights are seen above the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres. They are known as 'Aurora borealis' in the north and 'Aurora australis' in the south.. 

Auroral displays appear in many colours although pale green and pink are the most common. Shades of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet have been reported. The lights appear in many forms from patches or scattered clouds of light to streamers, arcs, rippling curtains or shooting rays that light up the sky with an eerie glow.

The Northern Lights are actually the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the Earth's atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere. Variations in colour are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding. The most common auroral color, a pale yellowish-green, is produced by oxygen molecules located about 60 miles above the earth. Rare, all-red auroras are produced by high-altitude oxygen, at heights of up to 200 miles. Nitrogen produces blue or purplish-red aurora.

Northern Lights can be seen in the northern or southern hemisphere, in an irregularly shaped oval centred over each magnetic pole. The lights are known as 'Aurora borealis' in the north and 'Aurora australis' in the south. Scientists have learned that in most instances northern and southern auroras are mirror-like images that occur at the same time, with similar shapes and colors.

Because the phenomena occur near the magnetic poles, northern lights have been seen as far south as New Orleans in the western hemisphere, while similar locations in the east never experience the mysterious lights. However the best places to watch the lights (in North America) are in the northwestern parts of Canada, particularly the Yukon, Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Alaska. Auroral displays can also be seen over the southern tip of Greenland and Iceland, the northern coast of Norway and over the coastal waters north of Siberia.

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Smart-dust

"Smart-dust: Hitachi Develops World's Smallest RFID Chip"

Nicknamed "Powder" or "Dust", the surface area of the new chips is a quarter of the original 0.3 x 0.3 mm, 60µm-thick chip developed by Hitachi in 2003. 

This RFID chip is only one-eighth the width of the previous model. Hitachi expects this tiny size will open the way to new applications for wireless RFID chips. 

The RFID "powder" can be incorporated into thin paper, such as currency, creating so-called "bugged" money.

The RFID Loc8tor can identify special RFID tags from a distance of up to 183 meters (600 feet), and the RFID chips have GPS capabilities. 

"By taking advantage of the merits of compactness, high authenticity and wireless communication, and combining it with Internet technology, the µ-Chip may be utilized in a broad range of applications such as security, transportation, amusement, traceability and logistics."

 Read More: http://www.knowledgeoftoday.org/2011/12/anonymous-vs-illuminati.html#RFID-Chip

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Weird facts about human body

Weird facts about human body

Men lose about 40 hairs in a day and women lose 70 hairs in a day.

Your blood has same amount of salts in it as an ocean has.

You are taller in the morning than you are at night.

Heart circulates blood in your body about 1000 times each day.

Eyelashes last about 150 days.

There are 500 hairs in an eyebrow.

The average human body contains approximately 100 billion nerve cells.

It is not possible to sneeze with open eyes.

Bones are 4 times stronger than concrete.

Average life span of a taste bud is only 10 days.

You are born without knee caps and they don’t appear until age of 2 to 6 years.

Children grow faster in springtime

Eyes stay the same size throughout life but nose and ears never stop growing.

We born with 300 bones but end up with 206 bones when we are adult.

Human skull is made up of 26 different bones.

Hair is made of same substance as fingernails.

Our entire body functions stop when we sneeze, even your heart beat.

Tongue is the strongest muscle in human body.

Typical person goes to bathroom six times a day.

Food takes 7 seconds to reach stomach from mouth.

Children have more taste buds than adults.

Sneeze blows air out of nose at the speed of 100 miles per hour.

Largest muscle in your body is one on which you are sitting on.

Smallest bone of body is in ears.

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Pictures From Space

Vegetation Pattern around lake George New York. The change in seasons is vividly displayed in four satellite images of Lake George, New York. Snow covers the land in winter, the first greening of vegetation pops up in spring, the landscape is green with plants in summer and finally, fall colors show the green vegetation is dwindling.

These images allow scientists to study the same place at different times of year. This helps scientists learn how different plant types respond to changes in temperature, amount of daylight and rainfall. Over time, variations in normal patterns may be observed. Changes in plants are caused by various factors, including drought, excessive heat or cold and insect infestation.

The four satellite images (taken in different years) were captured by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer on NASA's Terra satellite.

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Wildlife Crossings Saving Lifes

Wildlife Crossings

Wildlife crossings are structures that allow animals to cross human-made barriers safely. Wildlife crossings may include: underpass tunnels, viaducts, and overpasses (mainly for large or herd-type animals); amphibian tunnels; fish ladders; tunnels and culverts (for small mammals such as otters, hedgehogs, and badgers); green roofs (for butterflies and birds). 

Wildlife crossings are a practice in habitat conservation, allowing connections or re-connections between habitats, combating habitat fragmentation. They also assist in avoiding collisions between vehicles and animals, which in addition to killing or injuring wildlife may cause injury to humans and property damage.

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Largest Star in the Universe

Largest Star in the Universe

VY Canis Majoris

The undisputed king of the hill here is no doubt the most easily recognized star, VY Canis Majoris. This topper of the top 10 largest stars list is much less in density but has a whooping solar radii of 1800-2100. If set in place of our Sun, it would easily engulf all the space up till Saturn. 

Roughly 5000 light years away from us, VY Canis Majoris is also known as one of the brightest stars in our discovered universe. Many scientists are engaged in speculation over the type of death VY Canis Majoris is bound to have. Many state that will go off as a hyper nova and part of it will be converted into a black hole. The dissemination of VY Canis Majoris may light up the entire galaxy for up to 12 weeks!

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Source:

http://top10hm.com/

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Roman Colosseum

The Roman Colosseum is the most famous monument to have survived from the classical world. It was built nearly two thousand years ago for the purpose of hosting violent gladiator games. Thousands of men and animals fought for their lives in the sandy arena. A few gladiators and warriors found glory there. Some even found fame and riches but many more died an anonymous death, providing entertainment for eager Roman spectators.

The powerful associations and images evoked by the Roman Colosseum express both the majesty and might of the Roman empire. It dominates the space it occupies, towering above the surrounding Roman streets and buildings. It is a symbol of the imperial might and architectural ingenuity of the Roman empire that dominated the ancient Mediterranean world for centuries. The story of the amphitheater and its gladiator games from their origins through the zenith of their development and into the decline and eventual fall provides a unique insight into the evolution and fall of the Roman empire itself.