I share a fun fact on this blog everyday on many subjects - Cars, Art, Algebra, Geometry, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Human Body, Animals, Plants, Earth, Astronomy, Countries and Politics, Money Matters, Engineering, Riddle, History - but not limited to this.
A meteoroid is a small body moving in the solar system. This will be called a meteor if it entered in earth's atmosphere - this meteor travels towards earth at 25,000 to 160,000 miles per hour. This meteor becomes brightly visible due to the heat and light it emits at this speed. This light and heat leaves a trail which can be seen in a night sky. This is what many people call "a shooting star"
When earth passes close to a comet or astroid belt, many such meteors can be seen in the night sky falling at the same time - this is called meteor shower.
Every year in month of August earth passes through the path of a comet called swift-tuttle. This is a best time to watch meteor shower if you are in northern hemisphere.
Your body is made of cells -- but how does a single cell know to become part of your nose, instead of your toes? The answer is in your body's instruction book: DNA. Joe Hanson compares DNA to detailed manual for building a person out of cells -- with 46 chapters (chromosomes) and hundreds of thousands of pages covering every part of you. In this video learn how a DNA stores all the information needed for a human body.
Bees have been producing honey as they do today for at least 150 million years. Bees produce honey as food stores for the hive during the long months of winter when flowers aren't blooming and therefore little or no nectar is available to them.
Honeycombs are made up of hexagonal wax cells. This video describes why bees may have evolved in making hexagonal cells over any other shape. Enjoy ! :)
Is the climate of the whole Earth really changing?
Yes! Earth has been getting warmer—and fast.
Global climate is the average climate over the entire planet. And the reason scientists and folks like you are concerned is that Earth's global climate is changing. The planet is warming up fast—faster than at any time scientists know about from their studies of Earth's entire history.
What is climate?
"Climate" describes conditions over the long term and over an entire region.
Climate is the big picture. It is the big picture of temperatures, rainfall, wind and other conditions over a larger region and a longer time than weather. For example, theweather was rainy in Phoenix, Arizona, last week. But this city usually gets only about 7 inches of rain each year. So the climate for Arizona is dry. Much of Southern California also has a dry, desert climate. Brazil has a tropical climate, because it's warm and rains there a lot.
These two types of vegetation reflect their climates—one very wet and one very dry.
What is weather?
TV weather reporters need all the information they can get in order to predict the weather for just a few days.
Weather is local and temporary.
On our own Earth, we cannot control weather by turning a thermostat up to make it warmer or down to make it cooler. The best we can do is try to predict the weather. Weather scientists, called meteorologists, try to foresee what's going to happen next.
It looks like this storm is getting ready to create a tornado.
Is that big black cloud going to let loose over San Francisco, or wait until it gets to Sacramento? Will that new storm forming in the Atlantic Ocean turn into a hurricane? Conditions are just right for tornadoes. Will any form? And where might they touch the ground and cause trouble? Weather happens at a particular time and place. Rain, snow, wind, hurricanes, tornadoes—these are all weather events.
Do we care if Earth is getting warmer?
The whole Earth as seen from 22,300 miles away, out in space.
Yes, we care! After all, Earth is our spaceship.
It carries us on a 583-million-mile cruise around the Sun every year. It even has its own "force field." Earth has a magnetic field that protects us from killer radiation and brutal solar wind. For its life-support system, Earth has all the air, water, and food we need.
Just like astronauts on a long space voyage, we need to monitor all our "ship's" vital functions and keep our Earth "ship shape."
Earth is a magnificent spaceship. Its magnetic field is an "invisible force field" protecting us from the Sun's stormy blasts. And Earth gives us everything else we need to live.
Does what we do matter?
Earth's fate is in our hands.
Everything that happens here affects something over there.
Earth has its own control system. The oceans, the land, the air, the plants and animals, and the energy from the Sun all affect each other to make everything work in harmony. Nothing changes in one place without changing something in another place. The overall effect gives us our global climate.
What is making Earth's climate warmer?
How can we take better care of our planet?
Scientists have discovered that humans are causing this warming.
But how do they know that? What are we doing that could cause the whole planet to get warmer? And how could warming happen so fast? What will happen to people and other living things if the planet keeps getting warmer? And what can we do to slow down or stop the warming?
How do we know the climate is changing ?
So what if Earth gets a tiny bit warmer?
The sky is still blue. Trees are still green. Wind still blows. Clouds are still white and fluffy. Rain still pours from the sky. Snow falls and it still gets really cold sometimes in some places. Earth is still beautiful.
Left to right: Virgin River in Zion National Park, Utah; dirt road through a dry valley in Onyx, California; Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah; polar bears in the Arctic.
So what is the problem? What is the fuss about climate change and global warming?
Well, after observing and making lots of measurements, using lots of NASA satellites and special instruments, scientists see some alarming changes. These changes are happening fast—much faster than these kinds of changes have happened in Earth's long past.
All these satellites, plus a lot more, are studying Earth and all the changes happening with the air, ocean, land, and ice.
Polar bear clings to a small chunk of melting ice surrounded by open sea.
Global air temperatures near Earth's surface rose almost one and one-half degrees Fahrenheit in the last century. Eleven of the last 12 years have been the warmest on record. Earth has warmed twice as fast in the last 50 years as in the 50 years before that.
One and one-half degrees may not seem like much. But when we are talking about the average over the whole Earth, lots of things start to change.
Why is Earth getting warmer?
Why is Earth getting warmer? Here's one clue: As the temperature goes up, the amount of carbon dioxide, or CO2, in the air goes up. And as the carbon dioxide goes up, the temperature goes up even more.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. That means it traps heat from Earth's surface and holds the heat in the atmosphere. Scientists have learned that, throughout Earth's history, temperature and CO2levels in the air are closely tied.
This graph shows carbon dioxide levels over the past 450,000 years. Notice the sharp increase starting around 1950. Ref: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/temperature-change.html.)
This graph shows CO2 levels over the past 450,000 years. As you can see, for 450,000 years, CO2 went up and down. But CO2 levels never rose over 280 parts per million until 1950. But then something different happens and CO2 increases very fast. At the end of 2012, it is 394 parts per million*. Why?
Because of us and our fossil fuels.
Now, let's look at that graph again, but adding the temperatures for that same period of Earth's history.
This graph shows how carbon dioxide and temperature have risen and fallen together in Antarctica over the past 400,000 years. Ref: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/pastcc_fig1.html.
You can see how CO2 levels change with temperature. Look at what it is doing now.
Yipes!
* Reference NOAA's Earth system Research Laboratory, Global Monitoring Division, http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends.
How do we know what Earth was like long ago?
A big part of the answer is ice cores.
In Antarctica, scientists have drilled down two miles below the surface and brought up samples of the ice. These samples are called ice cores. It's like what you get if you plunge a drinking straw into a slushy drink and pull it out with your finger over the end of the straw. What you will have inside the straw is an ice core—although a very slushy one.
The layers in an Arctic ice core are frozen solid. They give clues about every year of Earth's history back to the time the deepest layer was formed. The ice contains bubbles of the air from each year. Scientists analyze the bubbles in each layer to see how much CO2 they contain. Scientists can also learn about the temperatures for each year by measuring relative amounts of different types of oxygen atoms in the water. (Remember, water is H2O: two hydrogen atoms, and one oxygen.)
(Clockwise from top left) Ice coring machine, hole in ice, pulling ice core from machine, man with hands on ice core tube in ground, scientist holding up ice core in triumph, man hand drilling ice core.
Other scientists study cores of sediment from the bottom of the ocean or lakes. Or they study tree rings and layers of rocks to give them clues about climate change throughout history. They compare all their findings to see if they agree. If they do, then their findings are accepted as most likely true. If they don't agree, they go back and figure out what is wrong with their methods.
Left to right: Scientist kneels next to a tree core showing its many years of rings; cross-cut tree trunk showing its rings; scientist studies tree specimen with microscope and other instruments.
In the case of Earth's climate history, the facts agree from a lot of different kinds of studies.
How can so little warming cause so much melting?
Water can soak up a lot of heat. When the oceans get warmer, sea ice begins to melt in the Arctic and around Greenland. NASA's Earth satellites show us that every summer some Arctic ice melts and shrinks, getting smallest by September. Then, when winter comes, the ice grows again.
But, since 1979, the September ice has been getting smaller and smaller and thinner and thinner. Check out the Climate Time Machine and watch the ice shrink.
Earth's Arctic area: On left, the ice cap covers a large part of the Arctic Ocean. this image is an average of the ice extent during Septembers of 1979-1981. On right, however, a much smaller area is covered by ice in September 2007. Ref: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/sea_ice_nsidc.html.
See how much three glaciers have shrunk over time. Columbia Glacier from 1980 - 2005; Arapaho Glacier from 1898 to 2003; and Grinnell Glacier from 1940 - 2006.
Glaciers are another form of melting, shrinking ice. Glaciers are frozen rivers. They flow like rivers, only much slower. Lately, they have been speeding up. Many of them flow toward the ocean, then break off in chunks--sometimes huge chunks. In places such as Glacier National Park, the glaciers are melting and disappearing. The air is getting warmer, and less snow is falling during winter to renew the melted parts of the glaciers.
Doesn't rising sea level just bring us closer to the beach?
As more sea ice and glaciers melt, the global sea level rises. But melting ice is not the only cause of rising sea level. As the ocean gets warmer, the water actually expands! Sea level has risen 6.7 inches in the last 100 years. In the last 10 years, it has risen twice as fast as in the previous 90 years. If Greenland's ice sheet were to melt completely, sea level all over the world would rise by 16-23 feet (5 to 7 meters). The map above of the southeastern U.S. shows in red the area that would be under water if sea level were to rise by 20 feet (6 meters).
Double yipes! Play with the Climate Time Machine to see what rising sea level will do to other parts of the world.
How does climate change affect other species?
Life is a web, with every strand connected to every other strand. One species of plant or animal changes, and a whole chain of events can follow involving many other species.
This caribou mom looks a little thin. Photo: Al Seib/Los Angeles Times.
For example, herds of caribou live in cold, Arctic locations. Caribou hate mosquitoes. In the past few years, warmer temperatures in summer have allowed mosquito populations to explode. So the caribou spend a lot more energy swatting away the mosquitoes. All this swatting leaves the caribou less energy to find food and prepare for the next long winter. Female caribou are especially troubled because it takes so much energy to give birth and raise their young.
This marmot may have awakened from his winter nap too early, but he still seems to be getting plenty to eat.
Animals that hibernate in the winter also suffer from warming temperatures. Marmots, chipmunks, and bears are waking up as much as a month early. Some are not hibernating at all. These animals can starve if they stay awake all winter, because they can't find enough food. If they wake up too early because it feels warm enough to be spring, the days may not yet be long enough to signal the plants to start their spring growth. So, again, the wakeful animals go hungry.
Many trees in the Western U.S. are already suffering from climate change. Droughts leave trees thirsty and stressed. Pine trees need cold winters, too. With warmer, drier conditions, the trees are more likely to become infected with insects. These bugs bore into the trees and lay their eggs. Eventually, they kill the tree. Some forests in the West have lost over half their trees already to pine beetles. When the forest is gone, birds and small mammals that lived there have to find new homes--if they can.
This forest is infected with pine beetles. The close-up is the inside of a tree infected with the beetles.
There are many more plant and animal species and communities struggling to adapt to the rapidly changing climate.
September 2009 Station Fire near Los Angeles.
This satellite image shows the "Station Fire" of September 2009, which burned one-fourth of the Angeles National Forest (near Los Angeles). In the future, drought conditions and record hot temperatures could make fires like this more frequent and intense.
Source: http://climatekids.nasa.gov/
Yes, really some plants eat meat. They setup a trap to capture a pray and then eat it. Scientific word for such plants is "Carnivorous" Most carnivorous plants eat flying, foraging, or crawling insects. Those that live in or around water capture very small aquatic prey like mosquito larvae and tiny fish. On rare occasions, some tropical carnivorous plants have even been reported to capture frogs, or even rats and birds (although these creatures were probably sick or already near death)! But don’t worry, these plants pose no danger to humans, even if you fell asleep in a whole bed of them. Carnivorous plants tend to grow in places where the soil is thin or lacking in nutrients like bogs and rocky areas, so these plants must get some of their nutrients by trapping and digesting animals, especially insects. More than 600 species and subspecies of carnivorous plants have been identified, although some are now extinct. The Venus’s-flytrap is probably the most famous. Catching a Meal
Just like other plants that need to attract other creatures to help with things like pollination, carnivorous plants use different strategies to attract their prey. Some are sweetly scented, others are brightly colored, still others have parts that are sticky or slippery or designed in a way that makes it hard for prey to escape. Once they have attracted their dinner, carnivorous plants use five basic trapping strategies:
Pitfall traps (like pitcher plants),
in which the prey falls into a rolled leaf that contains a pool of digestive enzymes and/or bacteria at the bottom;
2. Flypaper traps, that use a sticky glue substance to hold onto unsuspecting insects;
3. Snap traps (like the Venus’s-flytrap),
where the leaves actually snap shut to create a plant prison; The Venus’s-flytrap has long been an object of fascination (it even stars in a movie!). How does the plant move? Does it have muscles? Venus’s-flytraps aren’t the only type of carnivorous plant that moves, but they are the most commonly known. When something touches the trigger hairs on the edges of the leaves, the cells on the inside wall of the trap transfer water to the outside walls, so the inside essentially goes limp. This makes the leaf snap closed.
Another way carnivorous plants move can be observed in sundew plants, which have a long flypaper trap. Once the prey gets stuck on the gluey tentacles, the tentacles embrace the creature by growing faster on the outside than the inside. And they can do this really fast. One species of sundew can bend 180ยบ in only a minute or so!
4. Bladder traps,
which use a bladder to suck in aquatic creatures;
5. Lobster-pot traps,
which use inward-pointing hairs to force prey towards the digestive enzymes.
The Digestion Question So once they catch their prey, how do these plants digest the meal? Most carnivorous plants make their own digestive enzymes. Still others depend on bacteria to produce these enzymes; the bacteria cause the captured prey to rot and the plant absorbs the nutrients. Still other plants rely on both their own enzymes and additional enzymes generated by bacteria. Yet another method is even more unappetizing. Some carnivorous plants use bugs and insects as helpers. For example, on carnivorous sundews, assassin bugs crawl around and eat the insects that have been captured. Then these bugs poop and the feces provide dinner for the plant! Yuck! :)
Note: The video below is made with a technique called "time-lapse". What that means is - it feels like the plants are really moving, growing and changing fast but in reality all this happens slow; the reason it looks fast is because the video is taken over a long period and played in fast-forward mode.
The ocean is divided into five main layers. These layers, called "zones", begin at the ocean's surface and extend to the sea floor, plunged into total darkness. These deep zones house some of the strangest and most fascinating creatures in the sea. The upper layers are home to both colorful tropical fish and majestic sharks and whales. Despite the differences in conditions and organisms, the diversity of each layer is equally astounding.
You can learn more about each of this zones by going to the webpage below;
Checkout pictures of some exotic creatures found in deep ocean (twilight and no light zones); Female Angler fish (if you remember, this was in the movie "Finding nemo")
Yes! Earth has been getting warmer—and fast.
Why is Earth getting warmer? Here's one clue: As the temperature goes up, the amount of carbon dioxide, or CO
