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1982 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Rubbed the wrong way
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Shark skin doesn't look like normal fish skin. It's made of microscopic diamond shaped scales with rough edges, called "denticles". These are thought to share an evolutionary origin with teeth - indeed, they have much more in common with teeth than with scales. Like teeth, they consist of a central cavity made of pulp surrounded by dentine and enamel. The flexible but irregular surface is impossible for barnacles and other micro-organisms to cling to, as well as decreasing drag and turbulence. So just when you thought sharks couldn't get any scarier, it turns out that their entire bodies are literally COVERED with teeth. ...
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8678 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Did you know underwater cables power the internet?
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I didn't lol Hundreds of thousands of kilometres of submarine cables lye on the ocean floor - sometimes at depths nearing 8,000 metres. These cables are essential for powering the modern Internet, transmitting 99 percent of all international data. The Submarine Cable Map is a free resource from TeleGeography. Data contained in this map is drawn from the Global Bandwidth Research Service and is updated on a regular basis. ...
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25691 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
This baby fish will grow up to be one of the fastest fish in the sea
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While it may look small now, this baby swordfish ( Xiphias gladius) grows fast and can reach 14 feet in length and weigh up to 1,200 pounds as an adult. They are found in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans and sometimes cold waters, including the Mediterranean Sea, the Sea of Marmara, the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov. They are highly migratory, moving to warmer waters in the winter and cooler waters in the summer. While they are not at the top of the food chain, it is not a fish to be messed with; apparently, even sharks are wary of them! ...
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17624 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
What really causes an 'ice age'?
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I learned about something called axial precession in astronomy class several years ago, which is the idea that as something rotates along its axis, it will slowly trace out a cone if the weight of the object isn't equally distributed. In the case of Earth, Earth isn't a perfect sphere as many of us may think it is -- it actually bulges out in the middle enough for it to allow this phenomenon to occur. At the time, all I really took from this concept was how fascinating it is for the north axial pole to move 1° every 72 years from where it is now, and complete one full cycle every 26 000 years. However, I never managed to understand how this concept could fit in to my understanding of why ice ages [1] occur, and why they too follow a specific ...
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2764 |
bio_man |
11 years ago |
One ugly fish
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The coelacanth is known as a “living fossil” because it looks very much like its ancestors from 300 million years ago. Its genome has been sequenced, and it, in fact, has been found to be evolving at a very slow rate. The genetic sequence also might help give some insight into the transition from fins to limbs.
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2791 |
duddy |
11 years ago |
Feeding ducks bread could actually be harmful
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Feeding bread to wild ducks is incredibly harmful. Bread has almost no nutrients that are useful for the duck, so they become malnourished and more susceptible to disease. Compounding the problem is excessive bread in the water, which leads to high levels of E. coli and even botulism outbreaks. Wild ducks need to stay wild, and artificially feeding them causes them to lose their natural instincts for acquiring food. If you want to feed captive waterfowl, consider chopped vegetables, whole grains, or fruit instead. ...
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3021 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
White eyeless leeches
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This is Croatobranchus mestrovi, a leech that lives 1.3km below sea level and doesn't want to suck your blood. The leech's milky colour and lack of eyes comes from living exclusively in the freezing groundwater and darkness of one of the deepest caves in the world, located in Croatia. They were found in shallow water attached to rocks, with their extra-wide, tentacle-surrounded mouths facing the current.
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2463 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
World's largest bat
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Not sure how real the photo is, but there are really huge bats in Australia. Check out the video below:
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3 |
2179 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Unusual defence mechanism
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While the video may look like a trick an owner could teach their animal to do, some birds actually do play dead to avoid predation. If they feel in danger, they will essentially 'play dead' since predators are more interested in live, healthy prey than dead prey.
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3 |
3409 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Baby blue eyes
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Waardenburg Syndrome is a rare autosomal genetic disorder that has possible bright blue eyes as one of its qualifying criteria, along with possible deafness (common). Actually, the cause of the blue eyes is a form of albinism that may include patches of non-pigmented skin or forehead hair, regardless of ethnicity. There are four types of Waardenburg Syndrome, with a mix of possible characteristics as the determinant. Medical challenges increase with type. The boy in the picture is displaying two major symptoms of type 1; bright blue eyes and dystopia canthorum, a condition where the inner corners of the eyes are set more widely apart, but with normally distanced eyes. ...
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3944 |
savio |
10 years ago |
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7758 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Ever wonder why buttered popcorn smells so good?
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The binturong, or bearcat, is a rare species found in Southeast Asia. The females are usually 20% larger than the males, and they communicate amongst themselves using scent glands located on either side of the anus. These scent glands emit an odour that smells exactly like buttered popcorn.
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8187 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
One of the oldest living organisms in the world
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This is one of the oldest living organisms in the world. This very dense, flowering shrub is related to parsley and lives in the extremely high elevations of the Atacama Desert in Chile. It is at least 2,000 years old.
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2193 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
This incredible marsh turns from green to red as seasons change
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The Panjin Red Beach lies on the Shuangtaizi River estuary, just outside of Panjin City, China. The river isn’t your typical freshwater river. The water has a high saline content and very high alkaline levels. Typically, this leads to plants being unable to grow in the water or on the shore. However, there is a very special plant that has adapted to the conditions of the river and thrives in this environment. Suaeda (also known as seablite), is a kind of succulent that only grows in the type of habitat found along the river. Like a lot of plants, the suaeda changes with the seasons. During the spring and summer months, the seablite is a typical green color. In the fall, it turns this deep bright red color as far as the eye can see. Tourist ve ...
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3 |
10128 |
duddy |
7 years ago |
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