Whales are huge

Blue whales are the largest animals ever known to have lived on Earth. These magnificent marine mammals that rule the oceans are up to 100 feet long and weigh more than 200 tonnes. Their tongues alone can weigh as much as an elephant, and their hearts, as much as an automobile.

Prized Pekingese

The Pekingese dog was considered sacred among Chinese royalty. At the court of Li Hsui, one of the last Manchu queens, all court Pekingese had human nurses. Each dog had its own human guard to protect it from other dogs; some even had private palaces, complete with servants.

Sleeping away

Birds do not sleep in their nests.

They may occasionally nap in them, but they actually sleep in other places. While a bird that is actively incubating eggs or keeping small chicks warm may nap on the nest, once the birds are grown they do not return to the nesting site to sleep.

Alternate energy from cows?

Cows burp a lot, but until recently, no one paid much attention. Now researchers at the Texas Department of Highways in Fort Worth are sitting up and taking notice. Each year the cow population of the United States burps some fifty million tonnes of valuable hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. If they could only be captured and efficiently channelled, say the researchers, the accumulated burps of ten average cows could keep a small house adequately, if indirectly, heated and its stove operating for a year.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 10th, 2018