05/03/12 Final Blog Post...

Here I write the final blog post of the Did you know? blog, where I have really enjoyed my time searching for interesting facts and sharing it on my own little space here. At first I just wanted to get in depth with some fun, interesting facts about the world we live in and also about ourselves, and animals around us. But now after researching about the Earth, humans, and animals, I feel like I myself is only a small part of this world and that there are tons of uncovered knowledge out there that I can reveal. 

I think I made a good choice picking this topic, because these kinds of information and facts are crucial to modern days where a lot of things in the environment is falling apart. Global warming, wildlife abusement, pollution, and consequently the decline of our own health is something everyone should be aware of at a time like this. For me, even though my posts were brief and not much in length, even the most general, basic information about the Earth, humans, animals gave me a bigger picture of what is going on around the world. Knowing about it is what allows us to think about it, debate about it, and try to improve it. Therefore I think this concise assignments of blogging really was the first step to engaging myself further with the world around me.

04/04/12 Cockroaches vs. Ladybugs

After reading the title, you may be thinking, "Why would anyone talk about insects?" or "What's so interesting about them?". It is true that a majority of these insects we think about have horrifying appearance and a possibility of bringing pollution. However, many of them possess interesting (maybe a little disturbing) facts that most of us wouldn't have known. 

For example, ladybugs are one of the most free, unique insects among all. They have more than just their beautifully vivid colors. There are nearly 5,000 different kinds of them out int the world, and a female ladybug will lay more than 1000 eggs in her lifetime. Also, what makes them invulnerable is that they produce a chemical that stinks and tastes disgusting so that predators such as birds won't eat them. They have an intelligent way of feeding on their own stored fat during hibernation. 

Totally contrary to the beautiful ladybugs, cockroaches are a big deal in a home. They happen to appear anywhere anytime as long as there are bits and pieces of waste lying around. But what makes them most terrifying is that they are one of the most fastest land moving insects. A female cockroach can produce two million offspring a year. Not only this, but they have high survival rates; they can live for nine days without their heads and for a month without any food. Just damaging and threatening it won't do any good since they can re-grow their body parts! 

Always remember that some of the most beautiful insects and animals are sometimes the ones that have the most deadly poison. And before screaming and trying to kill the cockroach with anything you can grip, why don't you try to prevent their existence in your home in the first place?

03/27/12 The Human Body

Our bodies, like our planet, consist of many strange features that could blow your mind. Every function in the human body has its reasons and unique pattern. You will never be the same after reading about some of these facts:

 THE EYES

 Your eyes, in fact, do some of the most tiring work every day. They blink over 27,397 times a day, can distinguish 500 shades of gray, and can process 36,000 bits of information in an hour. Also, guess why why we have our eyebrows? They are actually meant to prevent sweat from running into our eyes. 

THE HAIR

 Hair covers the whole body, except oles of feet, palms of hands, mucous membranes, and lips. It is actually the fastest growing tissue in the body, with an average of 35 meters of hair fibre growing everyday. Do you worry about the large bundle of hair you lose everyday after a shower? It is perfectly normal for each person to lose about 100 hairs a day.

THE BRAIN

Your brain is actually made up of 80% water. Also, the brain itself has no pain receptors therefore it cannot feel pain. The most interesting part is that the brain kicks in and keeps things illuminated whenever we blink so the whole world doesn’t go dark each time we do (so about 20,000 times a day!). 

THE HEART

Beating about 72 times a minute, the heart pumps approximately 2,000 gallons of blood through 60,000 miles of blood vessels every day. Did you know that laughter may be one of the best medicines for our heart? Having a good belly laugh sends 20% more blood flowing through the entire body. 

Even right now when you are peacefully seated and reading this post, all parts of your body are going through a hardcore workout!

 

03/03/12 Interesting Facts About The Earth

Although we think we know quite a lot about the planet we live in, Earth actually has endless unknown features that people are continuing to find out. Human-beings have yet to explore all of Earth's waters and seas and there is a possibility that there could be more than 700,000 undiscovered species in this world. For a little sneak peak here is a list of interesting facts that you may not be aware of:

1. The Atmosphere

 

 We all know that this earth is coated with numerous layers such as the mesosphere, ionosphere, exosphere, and the thermosphere. However, the layer that supports all lives, the one we live on is actually the thinnest layer; the troposphere. 

2. Deserts

Would you be amazed if I told you that the deserts on earth are not mostly composed of only sand? About more than 85% of them are rock and gravel. Not to mention that the largest desert, the Sahara, takes over almost 1/3 of Africa (and it is continuously growing!), which is enough to fill the continent of the United States. 

3. Salty Oceans

Oceans, as we know it, are where we can get natural salt. But the amount is so huge that if we were to evaporate all the water and spread the salt over all land on Earth, we would get a 500 foot layer coating everything.

4. Shaky Ground

  The majority of the people nowadays, especially after countless destructive earthquake cases around the world, may think all of them as deadly and life-threatening. However, the Earth releases about 1 million of these every year, and almost all of them are never even registered. 

Other than these brief pieces of information, there are numerous facts about the Earth that we may never even have imagined. Nowadays scientists find a continuously changing state of the Earth due to human abuse and wastes we dump on it. Let's just remember that without Earth, there is no other secure place for us humans to take shelter; let's make it a clean and safe place to live in ourselves.

 

02/25/12 About my blog

My blog posts are mostly to entertain and shock the readers with new, unique facts in this universe. This may include facts about animals, human-beings, daily life, or the Earth itself. I myself have been always interested in this section, and there's no end to it when you start to research for more. 

For example, did you know that there are animals out there that squirt blood out of their eyes? Did you know some even sleep with one eye open? Or did you ever know the word "Friggatriskaidekaphobia" is the fear of Friday the 13th? All these bits of information may sound stupid or useless to you, but what if there's more about the universe than any of us actually know? Take about 5 minutes just to skim through some of my posts and pick up some interesting, mind-blowing facts that you may never have known before.

02/25/12 In the midst of reading "White Crow"...

White Crow is a mystery horror novel happening in the center of "Winterfold", a new, unpleasantly spooky place out of London where the protagonist Rebecca is forced to stay the rest of summer. I have finished almost half of the book and "uncanny" and "queer" would be the words to describe the story. The character setting, general mood, and the written style itself really is unique and strange, which also makes me thing some details are a little unnecessary. There are three different narrators in the book, all divided into separate sections of chapters, and although it adds a special, entertaining twist to the whole book, some are too disturbing to the comprehension of the story and seems unnecessary. However, what I really enjoyed were the unique, unusual characters, such as Ferelith; a little girl who seems to know everything and who is significantly different from most of the other pink, charming girls at her age. 

 

 

 

I can't help at times to think that the book is a little monotonous, but it certainly is a spine-chilling, interesting, fresh book to read.

02/09/12 My Independent Reading Book: White Crow

White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick

My independent reading book for quarter 3 is White Crow, written by Marcus Sedgwick. The cover of this book stood out from all the other ones and caught my attention, since I liked dark black, horror, thriller books (as well as movies). I flipped through and saw that each section of the book had a different person's (or I would say a "thing") perspective, and found this very interesting. 

Through some research, I found out the author was not only an author, but and illustrator as well as a musician (surprisingly, he even played as a guitarist in an ABBA tribute group). The genre of all of his books are, like White Crow, horror, suspense, thriller. He also has his own series called "The Raven Mysteries Series".

From reading this book, I hope to pick up some interesting words, characterizations, and mainly enjoyment.  

01/30/2012 Beware of the Hippopotamus

Here's a question for you: If you were in Africa right now, which animal would you be fearing the most?

 A. Crocodile

 B. Lion

C. Snake

 

D. Cute Hippo 

I predict most of you would have chosen the lion, crocodile, or the snake. It's hard to see the hidden fury in that cute, fat hippopotamus. Even I myself, until now, thought that hippos were classified as one of the "friendly" wild animals (like bunnies and monkeys and giraffes!). But in fact, it kills more people in Africa than any other wild animals on the list. This statistic is found as very shocking to a lot of people (including me) since hippopotamuses are not meat eaters. If they don't kill to eat, then what makes them so dangerous? 

First, contrasting with their fat, innocent looks, they're actually very bad tempered and quick on both land and water. That big, heavy body of theirs would actually play as a great advantage with just the right amount of speed. Also, their huge tusks that jut out of their strong set of jaws is what makes them one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. 

There were numerous accidents when men were unaware of these hippos in water and started bathing there or were coincidentally between a mother and her calf. These have lead to much more deaths of men than the lions of Africa have ever caused. It's said that the general reasons of such accidents, different from the meat eaters who attack for their survival, are because we merely disturb them or step into their territory. 

This proves a lot about how you shouldn't just judge upon appearance; those fat, massive, short-legged hippos are actually capable of climbing steep banks and galloping at 18 m.p.h. Let's just remember that we never know when we'll disturb an animal's temper, and it's always the safer way to keep careful.