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Saturday 14 December 2013

Dwarf Hamster

These little rodents are even more adorable than their bigger cousins. There are three species, but my favorite is Campbell’s dwarf hamster. These creatures come from the steppes of China and Russia. They are sold as pets in just about every pet store. Chinese hamsters are also adorable and sometimes called dwarf hamsters, although they are not in the same Genus.





African Pygmy Hedgehog

These mammals are the most adorable members the family Erinaceidae (mostly hedgehogs), even though it is filled with cute critters. You probably have seen one of these before or at least know how they look like. They are vaguely rodent-like mammals that have many small spines on their back. They can roll into a ball to protect themselves. This particular hedgehog has been domesticated, so you can have one for a pet without too much trouble.



Honeybees cant see red

Honeybees have five eyes. You would think that this would enable them to see with a greater level of clarity than other animals, but that isn’t the case—or not exactly. Bees have two large eyes on the sides of their heads and three additional, simpler eyes in the center of their heads to help with flight navigation. However, bees see very few colors.
Experts are not entirely in agreement as to which colors are perceived but the consensus is that these lie mostly within the blue-green color spectrum with some oranges and yellows. This is the light spectrum of 300–650 nanometers—humans see the wavelengths of 400–800 nanometers—and excludes the color red entirely. Bees probably see red as black. The incredibly adaptive feature that helps bees make up for this smaller range? They can see ultraviolet light, which is invisible to humans. Bees use this spectrum, which is dense at the center of flowers, to guide them to their targets. If deprived of ultraviolet light frequencies, bees lose all interest in foraging unless forced to by hunger.



Ghost bat

This white furred bat is found in tropical rain forests from Mexico to Brazil, and also in the island of Trinidad, in the Caribbean. It is a solitary animal that spends daylight roosting under a palm leaf, and then flies high at night, hunting moths and other flying insects



Night attack

If animals really want to catch us at our weakest, they need only attack us at night. While we’d be running around stubbing our toes and tripping over carpets, they could navigate the darkness with razor-sharp precision and unleash their fury at their convenience.
Just consider snakes. Many of them, such as pit vipers and some boa constrictors, have the equivalent of our infrared goggles built right into their bodies. These organs, which are on both sides of their heads, detect heat and produce a heat map image which the reptiles use to zone in on their prey.
And while the snakes are giving us their worst, the felines could easily join in on the wrath by relying on the special light sensitive cells in the back of their retinas to show them the way. This shiny layer of cells, the tapetum lucidum, reflects light back into the retina, effectively giving cats a second chance to absorb every photon. The reflective nature of these cells is also the reason why cat eyes seem to glow at night, and a pack of glowing cat eyes is enough to freak out any human. It’s true, they can’t see in total darkness, but because their eyes are so efficient, they need only a small sliver of moonlight or even the tiny standby light on your TV to unleash an assault.



Unusual animal friendships

Animals don’t always get along well with each other, especially if at least one of them is a carnivore. But at the Garold Wayne Interactive Zoological Park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, a baby chimp, a baby wolf, and two baby tigers have bonded together and become inseparable. But since they’re cubs, it’s only a matter of time until they outgrow their childish fondness and become mortal enemies, right?
Enter another unlikely animal trio: Baloo the bear, Shere Khan the tiger, and Leo the lion. The trio were rescued during a drug raid in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2001 when they were barely three months old. Today, they’re fully grown adults, with Baloo tipping the scales at 450 kilos (1,000 lbs) and Leo and Shere Khan each coming in at 159 kilos (350 lbs). The three animals all live in the same enclosure at the Noah’s Ark Animal Rescue Center in Locust Grove, Georgia, and are the best of friends. They not only eat and sleep together, but also hug, wrestle, frolic, and do all the things normally reserved for a box full of kittens.


Cats and Dogs can blind you

It is well known that close contact with dogs, cats, or their waste can be asource of parasites, and that such parasites may cause illness, especially impaired digestion. However, the results of certain roundworm infections known as Toxicariosis can be much more serious. Infection by the nematode parasite responsible for Toxicariosis often occurs through waste-contaminated soil or physical contact with dogs and sometimes cats. The debilitating Toxicariosis organism may trigger blindness if not properly treated. In addition to fevers and breathing difficulty, advanced cases of infection have been known to cause detachment of the retinas, leading to potentially permanent and serious ocular damage. While only a few cases are reported every year in Britain, thousands of cases of infection occur in the United States. Proper hand-washing can greatly mitigate the threat.





Natural phenomena: Columnar basalt

At some point in time, basalt looked at itself in the mirror and realized that if it ever wanted to be noticed by the cool kids in nature (us), it would have to step up its game. And so, much like the unpopular girl who is secretly gorgeous when she takes her glasses off, basalt showed the world what it was capable of—by arranging itself into columns.
Admittedly, on the surface this doesn’t seem all that impressive—columns aren’t traditionally very exciting—but when put together into a sprawling honeycomb, this type of basalt is a sight to behold. The unique formations are a result of lava flows cracking as they cool, in a perpendicular direction to the original flow. Columnar basalt clusters can be found all over the world—and then, naturally, climbed.



Friday 13 December 2013

Natural phenomena: Snow donuts

You know how when you were a kid, and it snowed outside, the first thing you did was roll up a nice big snowball? You either threw it at somebody’s face or made a snowman with it (depending on what type of kid you were), but that’s not the important part of the memory right now. The important thing—the fantastic thing—is that nature has its own way of rolling snowballs: snow donuts. These rare shapes are formed—under perfect temperature conditions only—when a mass of snow either falls or is blown by the wind. If it manages to catch on to some other snow, and gravity or the wind is in its favor, then the new snowball will roll itself in the exact same way we all used to. In this case, though, the middles tend to collapse to create a donut shape, which can end up as tall as 26 inches (66 centimeters)



Natural phenomena: Penitentes

Here’s another cool ice formation, about as far away from underwater as you can get—high in the mountains. These spiky fields of ice are called penitentes, and each individual shard can be up to a whopping 13 feet (4 meters) high. These intimidating snow structures are formed in high-altitude areas with low humidity, such as the glaciers of the Andes mountains. If the conditions are right, the sun’s rays are so hot that they can actually sublimate fields of snow—meaning that the frozen water vaporizes without ever becoming a liquid. This leads to slight pockets in the ice, which—thanks to their shape—actually end up attracting even more heat. The sharp spikes, then, are just the lucky parts of the snowfield that the sun didn’t target for complete and utter annihilation.




Natural phenomena: Sun dogs

Here’s another phenomenon that has to do with ice crystals in the atmosphere. Like fire rainbows, sun dogs are massive halos in the sky as a result of light refraction—though in this case, they appear to actually encircle the sun. Sun dogs can be recognized by the two distinctive bright spots on either side of the halo—if these blips are bright enough, it can even look like there are three suns in the sky, all side by side. And the good news is that this happens all the time, all over the world, so you’ll be able to start seeing them if you look closely enough (especially when the sun is low in the sky). Just remember that if you look closely enough at the sun for too long, you won’t be able to see much of anything. Ever. So try to be careful.




Natural phenomena: Fire rainbow

These colorful offshoots can often be seen during the summers of middle-latitude areas, such as most of the United States. What they actually are is a large halo of refracted light, and despite their nickname, they have nothing to do with either fire or rainbows. They only occur when the sun is at least 58 degrees above the horizon, when there are cirrus clouds in the sky that are filled with plate-shaped ice crystals. The refraction of light is always parallel to the horizon, and because the arcs are so big, only sections of them are ever commonly seen—which is why it can look like certain patches of cloud are on fire (or throwing a rave). The proper name for these things, in case you ever need to impress a scientist, is ‘circumhorizontal arc.’







Natural phenomena: Frost flowers

To put it simply, Frost flowers are flowers made of frost. More accurately, frost flowers are nothing like that, so let’s put it technically instead: they’re buildups of ice particles around the base of certain plants and types of wood. When the temperature outside the plant is below freezing and the temperature within them is not, then water is pulled to the surface in a process similar to transpiration. This leads to a fragile chain of ice being pushed outward, which ends up forming sprawling, delicate formations. So they’re not exactly flowers—more like leaves, if anything—but they’re just as pretty to look at, and at least twice as cool.




Natural phenomena: Supercells

If Superman is basically a stronger, more flight-enabled version of a regular man, then a supercell is basically a stronger, more tornado-enabled version of a regular storm cell. This is because—much like tornadoes—supercells have the tendency to spin around a lot, but also—and more importantly—because supercells can actually create tornadoes.
In case it needed to be mentioned, supercells are the most dangerous of the four major storm types, in addition to being the scariest to look at. Thankfully, they’re also the most rare, and tend to be confined to the central United States during the springtime. If you ever happen to come across one, wherever you are, just remember the advice you got: move in the other direction.



Natural phenomena: Volcanic lighting

If someone asked you to name the two coolest things you could ever see in nature, your answer would be “volcanoes and lightning.” Or possibly “lightning and volcanoes,” I guess, but those are the only two options—it’s just a fact. But nature, it seems, is constantly looking for new ways to impress us—which is why it went ahead and made volcanic lighting a reality.
And yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like—a lightning storm that takes place in the middle of a volcanic eruption. Scientists aren’t 100% sure why this happens, but the primary theory goes that when a volcano erupts, it projects positively-charged debris into the atmosphere. These charges then react with negative charges already present, which results in 1) a bolt of lightning, and 2) a really cool picture.


Natural phenomena: Brinicles

When the surface of the sea freezes—such as around the north and south poles—it does so in a way that forces pockets of especially cold and salty seawater to gather on the underside of the ice. This mixture of brine is denser than the seawater below it, and as a result it tends to slowly sink to the bottom. Now, because it’s so cold, the fresher water below the brine actually freezes around it as it falls, which results in a giant icicle under the surface. The technical name for this sort of thing is "ice stalactite"



Waterspout

Waterspout are exactly what they look like, and exactly as awesome as they sound: they’re tornadoes that form over water. Because of this, they don’t pose a major threat unless you happen to be in a boat—but if you are, then watch out, because these things can achieve speeds of up to 190 miles (305 kilometers) per hour. In fact, it’s been speculated that many mysterious shipwrecks—such as those within the Bermuda Triangle—are simply a result of bad luck with waterspouts. They can occur anywhere over water, but are especially prevalent in the Florida Keys, where there can be 400 or 500 waterspouts a year.  



Wednesday 11 December 2013

Lightning

Lighnting is a powerful flash of light in the sky. It's caused by elecricity and the sound it makes is called thunder.A thunderstorm, or electric storm, is a storm with both lightning and thunder. Lightning is one most  dangerous natural phenomena. It can damage buildings and crops but it dcan also causo wildfires and even kill people and animals.

 Did you know?

Friday 6 December 2013

minion rush

One of the games I play is the minion rush.


It is played only on android, that is on a smartphone or in tablet.








Custumize your minion for bananas which you take during the game

Sunday 1 December 2013

Let's Help to Have a Better Environment (by Jim Laz....s)

Letter to the Editor
Dear Sir / Madam,
I read your article about pollution in your news paper. It's true that nowadays we have a lot of problems with pollution People haven't taken good care of the environment for many years. Now we all need to do something to stop this.

People can help the environment by recycling. They must not throw away plastic, glass, aluminium and paper.  They can use recycling bins and collect all this material to recycle and use it again.
Teachers and students can organize a campaign for recycling, to make people understand how important it is. For example, if we recycle paper we will not cut down trees to make new paper.

Taking care of our environment means that our towns and neighbouhoods will become cleaner and healthier place to live in. If we all understand how important this is the Earth will become a better place for our children.

Yours faithfully,
Jim Laz_ _ _  s

Invitation for Christmas in Greece! - (by Alexander Ser...)

Dear John,
How are you? Are you finished with your school exams? We're finishing next week.
Have you realised that Christmas is coming in less than a month? Would you like to visit us for Chrismas this year? We'll heve a wonderful time together!

In Greece, at Christmas we have a Christmas tree at home which we decorate with beautiful colourful, crystal balls and lots of lights. We bake cookies and especially kourambiedes and melomakarona which are covered in honey and they're delicious.
On 31st December on the change of the year Santa Claus comes and leaves presents, but no one understands when he is here.

So, what do you think? Are you coming? Please, don't say no!!! If you come you'll love it here!
Write soon and let me know!
your friend.
Alex

Letter to the Editor...

Dear Sir / Madam,
Yesterday there was an article in your newspaper about exhaust fumes and the problems they are causing.
I agree that it is important and very practical to use your own car or motorbike, but we should use it less and only when it is needed.

Rxhaust fumes cause pollution. this means that they harm the environment and therefore the people living in a place.
Students and teachers can prepare a program and go green. Students must understand that we can use more often the bus. Also they should ask the mayor to build bike lanes.
If everyone understands how serious the problem of pollution is, then maybe it will be reduced in our city.

Yours faithfully,
Nestor V_ _ _ _ _