Hibernation

Energy is needed all the time.
We all need energy – all the time. Every living animal on Earth is burning energy all the time. Physical activities like walking and breathing burn energy. Pumping blood and digesting food burns energy. Even thinking burns energy. For warm-blooded animals, a lot of energy is burned just keeping our body temperature where we need it. Even when we're sleeping, we're burning energy.

What happens in Winters?
That's the whole reason animals eat -- to gain enough energy to fuel all those processes. The system works fine when there's plenty of fruit on the trees or rabbits to catch and eat . But what happens when winter comes and it becomes very difficult to find food? How do animals survive with few energy sources available?
Winters can be very harsh in many places. Human beings find warmth in heaters, woollen clothes etc., but what do animals do? Where do they get their food from when all the land is covered in snow ?
Animals have different, wonderful strategies to cope with winters. Some migrate, Some Adapt, and yet some hibernate. Smaller animals tend to be more likely to hibernate, because migration would require an enormous amount of energy relative to their body size. Larger animals are less apt to hibernate because of the additional energy required to warm up a large body.

What is Hibernation?
Some animals "hibernate" for part or all of the winter. This is a special, very deep sleep. The animal's body temperature drops, and its heartbeat and breathing slow down. It uses very little energy. In the fall, these animals get ready for winter by eating extra food and storing it as body fat. They use this fat for energy while hibernating. Some also store food like nuts or acorns to eat later in the winter. Bears, skunks, chipmunks, and some bats hibernate. Cold-blooded animals like fish, frogs, snakes and turtles have no way to keep warm during the winter. Snakes and many other reptiles find shelter in holes or burrows, and spend the winter inactive, or dormant. This is similar to hibernation.
Water makes a good shelter for many animals. When the weather gets cold, they move to the bottom of lakes and ponds. There, frogs, turtles and many fish hide under rocks, logs or fallen leaves. They may even bury themselves in the mud. They become dormant. Cold water holds more oxygen than warm water, and the frogs and turtles can breath by absorbing it through their skin.
When an animal enters a hibernationlike state during the summer, it's known as estivation. It's much less common than hibernation. Estivation is like hibernation in hot weather. Animals that live in deserts or tropical climates practice estivation. It may not occur solely because of food supply issues, as with hibernation, but because the conditions become too hot and dry for the animal to survive. The process typically involves burrowing into the ground, where the temperature stays cool, and reducing metabolic activity in a similar manner to hibernation.

How does hibernation work ?
Hibernating animals have a special substance in the blood called hibernationinducement trigger, or HIT. This substance becomes active in the fall, when the days becomecooler and shorter. When HIT becomes active, the animals start preparing for winter. Someanimals store food so that they can eat when they wake up, and some animals eat a lot in latesummer and fall to add excess fat to their bodies. This fat keeps them warmer and acts as asource of energy while they are sleeping. Some animals also make changes to the placeswhere they will sleep (dens). They add leaves and grasses to keep them warm.

Preparing for Hibernation
Preparation is required to hibernate successfully. Some animals prepare a den (also known as a hibernacula) and line it with insulating material, just as leaves or mud. Ground squirrels and lemurs do this. Polar bears dig tunnels in the snow. Other bears might spend the winter in a hollow beside a tree or a shallow cave, leaving them partly exposed to the weather. Bats are well-known for wintering in caves or attics.
Next comes food storage. Food can be kept in the den if it's nonperishable, but this requires the animal to wake up briefly during the winter to eat. Another option is to eat a large amount of food starting in late summer, building up a reserve of internal fat.
Several other things occur when an animal is hibernating:Heart rate drops to as little as 2.5 percent of its usual level. A chipmunk's heart rate slows to five beats per minute from the usual 200.Breathing rate drops by 50 percent to 100 percent. Yes, 100 percent. Some animals stop breathing entirely. A few reptiles go their entire hibernation period without breathing, and even mammals have shown the ability to survive with drastically reduced oxygen supplies. Consciousness is greatly diminished. This varies by species, but many hibernating animals are completely oblivious to their surroundings and are nearly impossible to wake up.
If you were to wake up a hibernating animal midwinter, you would be effectively killing it. It would use up so much energy warming itself up in order to awaken that it would have no chance of making it to spring even if it could re-enter hibernation.

The Class Apart Quiz II in pictures.

Cartoons!!!

The word cartoon has various meanings, based on several very different forms of visual art and illustration. The word is French and describes the cardboard 'carton', on which draughtspersons used to draw.

The term, Cartoon, has evolved over time. The original meaning was in fine art, and there cartoon meant a preparatory drawing for a piece of art such as a painting or tapestry.
The somewhat more modern meaning was that of humorous illustrations in magazines and newspapers. Even more recently there are now several contemporary meanings, including creative visual work for print media, for electronic media, and even animated films and animated digital media.

We can divide Cartoons broadly into three categories:

Caricatures: The comic strips based on day to day life, and politics, to elicit laughter and thought, is often full of subtle satire. The common man by R.K.Laxman is an exemplary example of Caricatures.

Comics: Comics are a sequence of caricatures designed to tell a story using character of its’ own. Comics can be short – strips like Dennis the Menace or long comic books, like Tintin.

Animation pictures: The new cartoons of today, the Animation movies we see on our television screens take a long route from the imaginations of its’ creators to the seemingly realistic movements on your screen.
The original animation was a kid toy, a book whose leaves could be scrolled rapidly. On each page there were figures slightly different from the previous ones, and through the rapid scrolling they merged one with the other. It was an optic illusion. Modern technology is much more evolved, but it works on the same principle: static images presented rapidly and successively.
Mickey Mouse opened the Golden Age of the cartoons that lasted until the middle of the '50s. Disney was followed by the Fleisher Brothers with Popeye the Sailor, the spinach eating sailor with steel muscles, and after them, an invasion of the characters preferred by today's children: Tom and Jerry, Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, Duffy Duck, Sylvester, Tweety and others. Later, the Simpsons with their odd heads boosted again the popularity of the cartoons.
The first feature cartoon, in 1937, was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", which had a huge success. Other feature cartoons followed and, in 1994, for example, Lion King, made at Walt Disney studios, had one of the grossest revenues of the year.

How is an Animation movie made:
The first thing that is done is that the story itself is developed as what is called a "storyboard". This is literally a giant sized comic strip. As the story is developed the artist adds new drawings to this storyboard. Sometimes the entire story is known beforehand and other times it is developed as they go along. These drawings are pinned into a cork board so it is very easy to make changes as they go along.
After the storyboard is laid out, backgrounds are made for the cartoon. These are painted on cardboard with either tempera, acrylic or sometimes even oil paints. These backgrounds are where the characters of the cartoon will be performing their movements and are extremely large to allow for all the motion that may be required. The camera will then move across the background as the characters move across it.
Before the drawing of the characters even begins, the voices of the characters are recorded on tape and then transferred to magnetic film. The film is fed through a sound reader and every syllable is recorded on an exposure sheet. This is required in order to perform the synchronization between the sound and the picture. Each frame of film must be synchronized separately. This is extremely time consuming.
Finally after all this, the hard work begins. Yes, it gets harder. Every second of film consists of 24 frames with as many as 24 different drawings. That means that an hour animated film can contain as many as 86,400 drawings. Taking these frames, they are fed through a projector to make sure that the movement of each character for each second is smooth. If there are any problems, certain drawings may have to be redone. Note that these drawings are all in black and white.
If the movements of the frames passes the quality control test, it is at that time that color is added to all these drawings, all done by hand.They are then superimposed onto the backgrounds.
The actual filming is done on what is called an animation stand. Many times the picture will be divided into several levels which are separated by about 12 inches. Each part of the background is on a different level so that a 3 dimensional effect can be achieved.
Finally, the film is fed back through a projector which is showing each filmed board at a very fast rate. This gives the cartoon the feeling of motion.

Next time you watch a cartoon, see if you can pick any of this out. If the cartoon is well done, you won't be able to.

Energy and its Sources

ENERGY

What is Energy? It is the ability to do work. Energy can be harnessed from a variety of sources. A few of the important ones are:

Renewable Energy

• Solar: Sun provide us with free unlimited energy. Disadvantages: This energy is not constant, but variable, and a large area is required to collect any decent amount of energy.
• Wind: Winds are caused by uneven heating of earth by Sun. Their energy can be harnessed by wind mills.
• Hydro: Harnessing energy hidden in fast moving water like in rapids or waterfalls is possible. The energy generated depends on the flow/fall of the water.
  

Non- Renewable Energy

• Crude Oil : is made from remains of plants and animals. Reservoirs are drilled, and Refineries make many products from oil viz. petrol, diesel, jetfuel, pet. Jelly, ink, crayons, deodorants, tires etc.
• Natural Gas: Colorless, Odourless, Tasteless. Mercaptan is added to the gas to provide a rotten smell. If compressed, this gas becomes liquid and can be stored in cylinders. It is also cleaner than other fossil fuels.
• Coal: Creaated by remains of ancient plants and animals in swampy places. Is mined either on surface or through deep mining.
• Nuclear: Energy can be created through rare and special elements like Uranium.
  

Electricity :
Electricity is a secondary source of energy i.e. we get it from conversion of other energy sources.
B enjamin Franklin discovered the phenomenon and Thoman Edison changed lives by inventing the light bulb. Electricity travels in circuits.

Since Energy plays such a crucial part in our lives, we must make sure not to waste it. We must use Electricity judiciously and use CFLs (Compact Flouroscent Light) where possible. Petrol and other fossil fuels should be consumed as less as possible since they can't be replenished.

Extremes of Life

Oldest Living Tree: Bristle ConePines in California USA. The oldest specimen, Methuselah is almost 5000 years old!!!

Animal with longest life span:Turtles, around 200 years old

Fastest Animal: Cheetal, 70 mph for short distances

Fastest Bird: Peregrine Falcon, clocked at 124 mph flying and 168 mph while swooping.

Fastest Fish: Sail Fish

Fastest Growing Plant: Bamboo can grow upto 3 ft in a single day!

Largest Animal: Blue Whale

Largest Land animal: African Elephant

Tallest animal: Girraffe , 19 mts. tall average.

Biggest Bird: Ostrich

Smallest Bird: HummingBird

Longest Hibernation: Marmot, for 9 months.

Fastest Train: MagLev, Shanghai.

Fastest Car: Bugatti Veyron.

Tallest Building: Al Burj, Dubai. 2950 ft.

Extremes of the Earth.

Our planet Earth, is full of many interesting extremes. Here are some of the important ones:

Highest Mountain: Everyone knows Mt. Everest is the highest mountain in the world. It is 8,848 meters high. Mt. Everest was first climbed successfully in 1953 by Sir Edmond Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. It is located in Nepal, and is a part of the Himalayas Mountain range.

Tallest Mountain : Though Mt. Everest is the highest mountain in the world, it is not the tallest one. Mauna Kea at 10,000 meters stand much taller than it, and is the tallest mountain in the world. However, most of this great mountain is immersed in the ocean, and only 4205 mts, is visible over the surface of the ocean in Hawaii.

Largest Mountain Range: Mid Atlantic Ridge runs deep in the Atlantic oceans, and covers almost the whole length of Earth. Though it is mostly under water, at 50,000 kms , it is much longer than Andes, Himalayas and Rockies all combined.

Longest mountain range on land: Andes in South America is the longest mountain range on Earth. It is 7000 kms long.

Deepest point in Earth: The Deepest point in Earth is called Challenger Deep, in Mariana Trench. It is 10,924 meters deep, which is much deeper than Mt. Everest.

Lowest Land area: The lowest land area is in Dead Sea, Jordan. It is 422 meters below the sea level. Dead sea boasts of very high salinity, 8 times that of the ocean. Animals can’t live in such salty water, thus its’ name.

Highest Waterfall: is the Angel Falls in Venezuela. It stands 3230 feet tall.

Tallest Volcano: Mauna Loa in Hawaii is the tallest volcano in the world. It stands 13,681 ft. tall.

Coldest Place: Antarctica at nights is the coldest place in the world. Temperatures here have been recorded as low as -129°f at Vostok station.

Hottest Place: El Azizia in Libya is the hottest place in the world. The highest recorded temperature being 136°F.

Driest Place: Atacama desert is a plateau on the Andes mountain range. Some places here have not seen rain for 400 years!

Longest River: River Nile flowing through Africa is the longest river, at 4100 miles.

Greatest River: Amazon river is the greatest and most amazing river in the world. It carries the most amount of water in the world- a whopping 20% of all freshwater in the world. Amazon also supports a vast rainforest all around it, that are also called The Lungs of the World, for generating a huge percentage of the world’s oxygen.

Highest Tides: Bay of Fundy is famous for the highest tides, sometimes as tall as a 3 storey building.

Biggest Ocean: The Pacific ocean is the largest Ocean- its’ area is even bigger than all of Earth’s land mass combined.

Largest Continent: Asia.

Smallest Continent: Australia.

Largest Country: Russia

Smallest Country: Vatican city , an enclave country in the city of Rome, is the smallest country in the world.

Largest Lake: Caspian Sea.

Deepest Lake: Lake Baikal in Russia is the deepest lake at 1637 meters deep, and carries more freshwater than any other lake in the world.

Paleontology

What is Paleontology?? Paleontology is a branch of science that studies ancient life forms and history of Earth by studying Fossils etc.

History of Earth: Earth has been around for a long time now; scientists today estimate it to be 4.5 billion years old. First Humans evolved around 1.8 million years ago. Numerous species have lived on Earth before getting extinct. The flora, fauna , weather and even the land mass on Earth has gone through many dramatic changes. But how can we know about the history of Earth if we were not even there? Paleontologists use fossils to aid them in researching the history of Earth.

What are Fossils? Fossils are the remains of ancient Animals and Plants, the traces or impressions of living things from past geological ages, or the traces of their activities. The fossil of a bone will have no bone in it. A fossilized object is actually a rock with the same shape as the original object, but it will have a different colour, texture and weight. This is because fossils are actually rocks!!

How are Fossils made? Earth is very god at getting rid of waste. As soon as a living thing dies, the process of its’ decomposition starts - the heroes of this process are bacteria. Fossilization is a very rare process, mostly found in sedimentary rocks.Fossils of hard parts (like bones and teeth) were formed as follows:

• Some animals were quickly buried after their death (by sinking in mud, being buried in a sand storm, etc.).
• Over time, more and more sediment covered the remains.
• The parts of the animals that didn't rot (usually the harder parts likes bones and teeth) were encased in the newly-formed sediment.
• In the right circumstances (no scavengers, quick burial, not much weathering), parts of the animal turned into fossils over time.
• After a long time, the chemicals in the buried animals' bodies underwent a series of changes and minerals replaced the chemicals in the bone.
• This process results in a heavy, rock-like copy of the original object - a fossil. The fossil has the same shape as the original object, but is chemically more like a rock!
  

Fossils help Paleontology in a big way. We know about Dinosaurs, and other extinct species solely due to fossils. TrackWays are footprints that become fossilized.



What are Dinosaurs? Dinosaurs were land dwelling reptiles that walked with an erect stance. The dinosaurs dominated the Earth for over 165 million years during the Mesozoic Era, but mysteriously went extinct 65 million years ago.

Dinosaur legs: upright position
Other reptiles: Sprawling legs

Dinosaurs Facts:
1. Most Dinosaurs hatched from Eggs.
2. Not all dinosaurs were giants – Some were as big as a chicken
3. Most of the Dinosaur were herbivorous. Only a few were carnivorous.
4. Many scientists believed that some Dinosaur evolved into todays’ birds.


Important Kinds of Dinosaurs.

Tyrannosaurus Rex also called T-Rex. Name: Tyrannosaurus Rex means: Tyrant Reptile (King)Interesting fact: Tyrannosaurus was the biggest and most powerful flesh eater that ever lived on earth. A grown man would hardly have come up to its knees. Its jaw was about 1.5 m long, with teeth that were 15 cm long and were serrated like carving knives. Tyrannosaurus needed a lot of food, so probably spent all its waking hours hunting for food.

Diplodocus
Interesting fact: Diplodocus was the one of the longest dinosaurs, it was about as long as a tennis court. Its brain was about the size of a hen's egg

Triceratops Means: Three-horned face. Interesting fact: Triceratops had a bony frill to protect its head, neck and shoulders. It's head was enormous, nearly a third as long as its whole body. Its curved jaw was very strong and like a parrots beak. Although it was a plant eater it was very fierce - even fighting with its own kind.Triceratops is the best known horned dinosaur. It had three horns: one on its nose and two long ones above its eyes.

Stegosaurus Means: Roofed Reptile
Interesting fact: The stegosaurs bony plated armour was to protect it from attack, but they also helped to keep it cool. It had a tiny tubular skull with a brain the size of a walnut. Its teeth were small, blunt and leaf-like. At the end of the tail there were four long spines, used for protection. Its hind legs were twice the length of its forelegs.

EXTINCTION OF DINOSAURS: Dinosaurs, and a number of other species that lived with it suddenly went extinct some 65 million years ago. Nobody knows for sure wht happened, but the most accepted theory is that major climate change, possibly due to an asteroid impact, and coming of Ice Age killed the Dinosaurs. However, many Paleontologists believe that not all dinosaurs died- some of them evolved into the modern day birds!!