General Knowledge

[annie]

The Great Barrier Reef



Spanning more than 2000 km along the northeastern coast of Australia, the Great Barrier Reef is home to thousands of species of plants and animals. The Reef which runs parallel to the Queensland coast has been designated by the Australian Government as a Marine Park.



Few can imagine the biological diversity of the reef. One probably has to realize first that the 2000 km long reef runs predominantly in the North-South direction, therefore spanning a wide range of climates. Rain forests and mountains are predominant in the northern islands, while the southern islands are composed mainly of Coral Cay.


Apart from its environmental value, the area offers visitors a variety of activities including scuba diving, snorkeling, water sports, and birdwatching.

[annie]

The Northern Lights





Northern lights, or Aurora borealis brings together two mythological deities - Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn, and Boreas, Greek god of the north wind - to describe an event witnessed mostly at night in the high northerly latitudes. An identical phenomenon, the aurora australis, occurs in the high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere, a region that has always been much more sparsely inhabited than the planet's northern reaches. Only a few eyewitness accounts of the aurora australis were available before 20th-century explorers arrived in Antarctica.


By contrast, the flowing ribbons, sky-filling swirls, otherworldly glow, gossamer veils, and brilliant rays of the aurora borealis are a regular presence that has awed and terrified northern peoples for thousands of years. To Finns the aurora was "fox fire" sparked by glistening fur. Some Alaskan Inuit saw the dancing souls of deer, seals, salmon, and beluga; others believed that if they whistled the lights might snatch them away. The Athabascan saw messages from their dead, the "sky dwellers."


For a long time, scientists offered almost as many interpretations of the northern lights as did the traditional peoples who observed them. The 20th century has brought with it studies of the earth's magnetism and the sun's workings. The aurora arises in the roiling turbulence of the sun. More than 100,000 times hotter than boiling water, the sun's interior chops the atoms that form solar gases into a thin stream of electrically charged particles - protons and electrons. Both matter and energy, this stream continuously erupts from the sun and is called the solar wind. Two or three days after bursting from the sun's surface at speeds of up to 500 miles a second, the solar wind reaches the earth, 93 million miles away.


The solar wind has the force to swiftly annihilate life on earth. What stops it from doing so is the shielding power of the planet's magnetic field, reaching out more than 40,000 miles into space. Like the earth, the sun is also a mighty magnet, and the solar wind carries fragments of its magnetic field. As solar particles crash into the planet's magnetic field, the fields repel each other.
Though most of the solar wind harmlessly sideswipes the magnetic shield, small streams of solar particles do manage to become trapped, spiraling down toward the planet's north and south magnetic poles. As they tumble, beams of electrons spread, ripple, and swirl, and yet their movements remain invisible. But when the solar wind hits the upper reaches of the ionosphere and encounters atmospheric gases, it starts churning the thin soup of oxygen and nitrogen there. Marvelous shapes and flowing patterns begin to appear. Electrons bouncing around among atoms of oxygen create a greenish glow much lower. Nitrogen molecules hit by solar wind may shine bright pink, or blue and violet, depending upon their distance from the surface.


The ever changing dance of lights belies the aurora's permanence. Though only parts of it can be seen at any time, and almost never during the day, the aurora borealis forms a 2,000-mile-wide auroral oval above the magnetic north pole day in and day out, year after year.


What can dramatically change the oval are the occasional spikes in solar activity that turn the solar wind into a raging hurricane. Then, for a few days, the auroral oval flows toward the Equator and treats sky-gazers as far south as Mexico to midnight extravanganzas. At the same time, electromagnetic disturbances intensify, with overloaded power lines and scrambled communications serving to remind us of the force behind the celestial fireworks.

[annie]

* The first motor car had only three wheels. It was very slow. It travelling just 6 Km in a hour. It was built by Nicolas Cugnot in 1769.

* A tran can take many people and good to distant places at the same time.

* An aeroplane covers long distance in a short time.

* A ship is a means of water transport.

* Camels are used in deserts for pulling carts and carrying people.

* Elephants are used to move around in thick forests. People in the hills use ponies and mules to travel.

* Boat , steamers and ships sail on water. They are means of water transport.

* In villages, bullock carts, tractors and bicycles are used.

[annie]

Follow these rules of road safety

* Always walk on footpath
* Walk on left side of the road
* Wait for the traffic to stop before crossing a road.
* Always use the zebra crossing for crossing the road.
* Befor crossing the road , look right , then left and then right again
* Cross only if road is clear.
* Do not ride a bicycle in the middle in the road.
* keep the left side of the road while riding a bicycle.
* Sand in a queue, white waiting for a bus
* Do not push or pull while getting into bus. Get in one by one.
* Do not disturb the bus driver

[annie]

Honey is the only food that will net get spoiled! A two thousand year old jar of honey found in Egypt still tasted delicious!

[annie]

Ship of desert



The Camel is the most important animal in the desert. It can live without water for many days. It is called the ship of desert.

[annie]

Fact Links

Although called a "sea" , the Caspian Sea is not a sea but a lake. It is the largest lake on the Earth. It lies between Asia and Europe.

Our Earth is the largest rocky (solid) planet in the solar system. Planet in the saturn are much bigger that our Earth but they are not rocky. They are made of gases and ice.

Leaks can be costly. A leak of just on drop per second wastes about 10, 000 liters of water in a year ! SAVE WATER

You have seen large dark areas on the moon. In the past, some people took it as a large human face on the Moon. They called it the Man on the Moon. some others saw in it image of a rabbit or a buffalo.

The footprints left by people who have walked on the Moon will remain there for at least 1 crore years. This is because there is no wind or water to remove them.

A Value Link



Do not Pluck
FLOWERS