Thứ Hai, 29 tháng 8, 2016

Elephants can run. Is it true?

Reading and enjoying these following elephants for kidsCan elephants run?

According to researcher John Hutchinson from the Royal Veterinary College in the U.K., adult elephants are capable of top speed running in a walk-like gait at a speed of 6.8 meters per second. That is nearly 15 mph.

Most animals don't think anything of breaking into a run: they switch effortlessly from walking to a high-speed bouncing run. But what about elephants? Their sheer size makes it impossible for them to bounce up in the air at high speeds. So how are high-speed elephants moving: are they running or walking?
African elephant faces the viewer
At a first glance, fast-moving elephants look as if they are walking, according to John Hutchinson from the Royal Veterinary College, UK. But closer analysis of elephant footfall patterns by Hutchinson suggested that speedy elephants' front legs walk while their hind legs may trot. Norman Heglund from the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, realised that the only way to resolve the conundrum was to measure the immense forces exerted on the animals by the ground as they move and found that elephants run in some senses, but not in others.

To measure these forces, Heglund had to construct and calibrate an 8m long, elephant-sized force platform from sixteen 1m2 force plates. Crating the 300kg force plates, cameras and computers in Belgium and shipping the equipment to the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre in Lampang, Thailand, Heglund, Joakim Genin, Patrick Willems, Giovanni Cavagna and Richard Lair built a reinforced concrete foundation and assembled the force platform ready to measure the enormous ground reaction forces generated by the animals.

Encouraged to move by their mahouts, 34 elephants ranging from an 870kg baby up to a 4 tonne adult moved over the force platform at speeds ranging from a 0.38m/s stroll to a 4.97m/s charge. Based on the force measurements, the Belgian team was able to reconstruct the movement of each animal's centre of mass and found that the elephant's movements are extremely economical. Consuming a minimum of 0.8J/kg/m, an elephant's cost of transport is 1/3 that of humans and 1/30 that of mice.

Heglund explains that the elephant's cost of transport is low because the animal's step frequency is higher than expected and they improve their stability by keeping an average of two feet on the ground even at high speeds, and three at lower speeds. Combining these approaches, the elephant's centre of mass bounces less than other animals', reducing the giant's cost of transport.
For more facts: tiger facts for kids

Next the team calculated the way that each animal recycles potential energy into kinetic energy to find out whether they run. According to Heglund, running animals continually recycle potential energy stored in tendons and muscles into bouncing kinetic energy -- just like a pogo stick -- while walking animals convert potential energy at the start of a stride into kinetic energy as they step forward -- much like an inverted swinging pendulum. By tracking how elephants cycle potential energy into kinetic energy over the course of a stride, the team could distinguish whether the high-speed animals were running or walking.

Plotting the potential and kinetic energy of the elephants' centres of mass over the course of many strides at different speeds, the team could see that the elephants were walking like an inverted pendulum at low speeds, but as they moved faster, the kinetic and potential energy plots shifted to look like those of runners. However, when the team analysed the movements of the elephant's centre of mass, they could see that it almost maintained a constant level as the animal shifted its weight from one side to the other, but bobbed down and up like a runner's during the second half of the stride.

So the elephants were running by one measure but not by another and it seems that the forelimbs trot while the hind limbs walk at higher speeds. 'High-speed locomotion in an elephant doesn't fall nicely into a classic category like a run or a trot. It really depends on your definition of "run",' says Heglund.

Read more: animal fun facts

Thứ Năm, 25 tháng 8, 2016

Comparing the human genome to animal genome

What are similarities between humans and animals in genetic? Have you thought about this science facts before?  

Image result for genome

It is very difficult to find reliable data comparing the human genome to animal genome. The principal reason is that few animals have had their full genome sequenced. Even those that have cannot be easily compared in terms of percentages because the genomic length and chromosomal division can vary greatly from one species to another.

Scouring the Web, here is what I have found so far.

- Genome-wide variation from one human being to another can be up to 0.5% (99.5% similarity)

- Chimpanzees are 96% to 98% similar to humans, depending on how it is calculated.

- Cats have 90% of homologous genes with humans, 82% with dogs, 80% with cows, 79% with chimpanzees, 69% with rats and 67% with mice. 
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- Cows (Bos taurus) are 80% genetically similar to humans.

- 75% of mouse genes have equivalents in humans (source), 90% of the mouse genome could be lined up with a region on the human genome (source) 99% of mouse genes turn out to have analogues in humans 

- The fruit fly (Drosophila) shares about 60% of its DNA with humans.

- About 60% of chicken genes correspond to a similar human gene.

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Thứ Tư, 17 tháng 8, 2016

Fascinating Fun Facts About Elephants

Here are some amazing elephant facts and news that may be interested to you:

  1. An elephant is one of the few four legged animals, which cannot run or jump.
  2. At birth, the baby elephants are blind and they depend on their trunk and their mothers to help them.
  3. Females can mate and have babies until they are around 50 years old, and they tend to give birth every 2.5 to 4 years.
  4. Elephants feed around 16 hours a day and they consume around 300 to 600 pounds of vegetation every day.
  5. Male elephants go through bouts of aggression, which last for short periods.  Hence, female elephants are kept at the zoos and used in the circus, as they are gentler in nature.
  6. Elephants are social animals and they are often seen touching and caressing one another and playing around with the trunks.
  7. An elephants tusk grows up to around 10 feet and weighs around 200 pounds.
  8. Elephants cool themselves by fanning their ears. This cool down the blood in their ears, which completely cools them off.
  9. Despite the size of elephant ears the quality of hearing is poor! The body at the back of an elephant ear is surprisingly soft, and called the knuckle, this area is used by trainers to steer and give commands to the elephant. The ears on an African elephant are flapped to help keep the animal cool
  10. Elephants are herbivores, they eat varying types of vegetation including grass, leaves, fruits, and bark
  11. Elephants have a walking speed of approximately 4 mph. A surprising fact is that they are able to swim for long distances!
  12. Male elephants leave the herd when they around 14 years old to form their own male herd.
  13. Adult elephants sleep while standing up while some baby elephants lie down to sleep.
  14. The gestation period of an elephant is about 22 months, the longest for any land animal.
  15. Elephants have warm greeting ceremonies to welcome back a fellow member of the herd if it has been away for a long time.
  16. As elephants have a great sense of smell, they are able to recognize people by their smell even after many years, but their eyes are small and their eyesight is poor.
  17. As a means of communication, elephants purr like cats. The frequency of their purrs and the sound they make is way below the human frequency and hence, isn’t audible to the human ear.

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Thứ Ba, 16 tháng 8, 2016

Why elephant has a trunk?

Learn all elephant facts about elephant trunk you wanted by this article:


An elephant's trunk is essentially a modified nose comprising muscle and no bone. When the trunk is used for drinking, as in the photo above, the elephant sucks water into the trunk and then squirts the contents into its mouth. In adults, the trunk when used like this can hold about 10 to 12 liters.
Elephants can't drink directly through their trunks as this would be like sucking water through the nose, which would cause them to drown.However, he did find it uncomfortable, because he had to go down on bended knees to reach anything.
One day, Elephant was at the river, and was kneeling down drinking from the fresh water.
Crocodile swam past, and saw Elephant at the water's edge.  Crocodile was feeling particularly hungry, and saw an opportunity for a good meal.
Crocodile swam stealthily up to where Elephant was, and suddenly lunged out of the water and grabbed Elephant by the nose.
Elephant was startled, and tried to pull away, but Crocodile had a firm grip on his nose.


Crocodile used all his weight and strength to try to pull Elephant into the water.
However, Elephant was also very strong, and he dug his feet into the bank and fought back.
The 2 battled for hours, and with every pull and tug, Elephant's nose stretched a little more. Eventually, Crocodile became too tired to pull any more, and let go of Elephant.
Elephant ran off, with his now very long nose hanging down in front of his feet.  He was distraught, and hid in the bush as he was too embarrassed to face the other animals.
Soon, Elephant realised that his new stretched nose was more useful than his previously small snout.  He was able to reach food and drink without kneeling any more, and could even reach high branches and pull them down to eat the fruit and leaves.
All the other Elephants soon realised the benefits of having a long trunk, and one by one they too visited the river and taunted the Crocodile to try and pull them into the water.
In short, trunk helps an elephant access better quality food and drink water.
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Bengal Tiger – Panthera tigris tigrisn facts

Would you like to see some animal facts in your freetime? So what about Bengal tiger facts? I believe that these following facts will be interested to you:


The Bengal tiger (also known as the Royal Bengal tiger) is a subspecies of tiger, found across theIndian subcontinent. The Bengal tiger is the national animal of Bangladesh and is considered to be the second largest tiger in the world.

  • Bengal tigers may weigh up to 325 kg (717 lb) and reach a head and body length of 320 cm (130 in). Several scientists indicated that adult male Bengal tigers from Nepal, Bhutan, and Assam, Uttarakhand and West Bengal in northern India (collectively, the tigers of the Terai) consistently attain more than 227 kg (500 lb) of body weight.
  • The Bengal tiger is the most numerous species oftiger in Asia and is found in dense forests and mangrove swamps and jungles throughout India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, although the Bengal tiger'srange today is much smaller than it once was.
  • The Bengal tiger is considered to be the second largest species of tiger, although recent reports suggest that the Bengal tiger is on average, larger than the Siberiantiger. The Bengal tiger has a yellow or light orange coat, with black or dark brown stripes and a white belly.
  • Bengal tigers are defined by three distinct mitochondrial nucleotide sites and 12 unique microsatellite alleles. The pattern of genetic variation in the Bengal tiger corresponds to the premise that they arrived in India approximately 12,000 years ago. This is consistent with the lack of tiger fossils from the Indian subcontinent prior to the late Pleistocene and the absence of tigers from Sri Lanka, which was separated from the subcontinent by rising sea levels in the early Holocene.
  • The Bengal tiger is a dominant and carnivorous predator, hunting its prey by stalking it until the Bengal tiger has the opportunity to catch it off guard. Bengaltigers primarily hunt larger mammals including deer, wild boar, cattle and goats.
  • Due to the size and power of the Bengal tiger, it has no natural predators in its native environment. Humans that hunt the Bengal tiger and habitat loss are the only threats to the Bengal tiger.
  • After a gestation period of 3 to 4 months, the female Bengal tiger gives birth to up to 5 cubs. Newborn Bengal tiger cubs weigh about 1 kg (2 lb) and are blind and helpless. The mother feeds them milk for about 2 months and then the Bengaltiger cubs are introduced to meat. Bengal tiger cubs depend on their mother for the first 18 months and then they start hunting on their own.
  • Today, due to habitat loss caused by deforestation, and hunting by humanpoachers, the Bengal tiger is considered to be an endangered species. Despite being the most common of all the tiger species, there are thought to be around 2,000 Bengal tigers left in the wild.
Also see elephant facts

Thứ Hai, 15 tháng 8, 2016

A variety of fascinating science facts

This list explores a variety of fascinating science facts that you probably are unaware of. Science is still a very mysterious subject so there are millions of trivial facts about it – this will be the first of many scientific fact lists in the future.

1) Collectively Speaking, Humans Have Spent Longer Playing World Of Warcraft (Over 6 Million Years) Than We Have Existed As A Species Separate From Chimpanzees.


2) A Dog Has The Same Ecological Footprint As Two Toyota Landcruisers; A Has Cat The Same Environmental Effect As A Volkswagen Golf; Two Hamsters The Same As A Plasma TV.


3) The Average Person Walks The Equivalent Of Three Times Around The World In A Lifetime.

http://d1kcl3yiuixneo.cloudfront.net/


4) If You Could Drive Your Car Straight Up You Would Arrive In Space In Just Over An Hour.


5) About 65 Billion Neutrinos Will Pass Through Your Fingernail In A Second


6) If All The LEGO Bricks Ever Manufactured Were Clipped On Top Of One Another, They Would Make A Tower Ten Times As High As The Distance To The Moon.


7) Light Would Take .13 Seconds To Travel Around The Earth.


8) If You Drilled A Tunnel Straight Through The Earth And Jumped In, It Would Take You Exactly 42 Minutes And 12 Seconds To Get To The Other Side.


9) A Medium-Sized Cumulus Cloud Weighs About The Same As 80 Elephants.


10) A Single Bolt Of Lightning Contains Enough Energy To Cook 100,000 Pieces Of Toast.


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Chủ Nhật, 14 tháng 8, 2016

Why can't we fly like birds?

Science factsWhy can't human fly will be answered in this writing:

Although mankind has conquered the skies with airplanes, we have yet to match up to our winged animal counterparts who fly on their own. And now, scientists have determined that we never will: it is mathematically impossible for humans to fly like birds.


A bird can fly because its wingspan and the wing muscle strength are in balance with its body size. It has a lightweight skeleton with hollow bones, which puts a smaller load on its wings. A bird also has air sacs connected to its lungs, which makes it even lighter and allows for easy passage of air through its lungs during flight.

On the other hand, calculations of the ratio between human size and strength reveal that our species will never be able to take flight unaided. As an organism grows, its weight increases at a faster rate than its strength. Thus, an average adult male human would need a wingspan of at least 6.7 meters to fly. This calculation does not even take into account that these wings themselves would be too heavy to function.

There is a reason that a 6-year-old girl can do more pull-ups than her 40-year-old father — she may be weaker, but her strength-to-size ratio is still greater than her father’s ratio. In other words, humans are not too large to fly, but our strength simply cannot support our weight in flight.
In order to fly:

We need to overcome our own weight—that is, the force of gravity.
To overcome gravity, we need to create an upward force called lift.
To create lift, we need to generate thrust for forward motion.
To keep moving, we need to overcome the resistance of the air—a force called drag.

Related to  random fact of the day

Thứ Sáu, 12 tháng 8, 2016

Fun Facts Of Life

Here are some amazing facts of life in a funny way:

1. When are men most helpful.


2. The taste of coffee with temperature.


3. Outfit crisis for men and women!


4. Success formula for girls to score at job interview.


5. How battery life of your laptop actually works.


6. Shampoo choices for men and women!


7. The biggest lies on the internet.


8. What does a woman’s hair length say about her.