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Sunday, May 31, 2009

What Are Clouds Made Of?




Clouds are collections of water droplets or tiny crystals of ice floating in the air high above ground level. They form when warm air containing moisture moves up into the sky and begins to cool.

Clouds are not all alike. Some are fluffy and white, while others form gray or black coverings over the earth. Clouds float at different heights, have different temperatures, and are made up of varying amounts of water, dust, and ice.

Weather experts, or meteorologists, have named clouds according to their appearance.

Stratus clouds, from the Latin word stratum (sheetlike or layerlike), appear as layers or sheets above the earth.

Cumulus clouds, from the Latin cummulus (pile or heap), are fluffy piles or heaps of clouds.

Cirrus clouds, from the Latin cirrus (curl), are curly white clouds.

Nimbus clouds, from the Latin nimbus (rainstorm), are gray rain clouds.

Cumulonimbus clouds, a combination of cumulus and nimbus clouds, have often reached 60,000 feet in height!

Where is the Hottest Place on Earth?



Do you think it's hot where you are? Not even close.

The Hottest Place on Earth ever recorded was El Azizia in Libya where the temperature reached a scorching 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 Celsius) on Sept. 13, 1922 -- the hottest ever measured.



Who Has The Shortest Alphabet In The World?

Bougainville is the largest island in the Solomons, a group of South Pacific islands North East of Australia.

Some of the island natives use an alphabet of only 11 letters, the shortest alphabet on earth.

This alphabet includes the same five vowels as our alphabet: a, e, i, o, and ii. But there are only six consonants in the Bougainville alphabet: b, g, k, p, r, and t.

Think how easy spelling would be with an alphabet of only 11 letters!

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Cockroach Facts




Scientists have actually performed brain surgery on cockroaches.

German cockroaches can survive for up to one month without food and two weeks without water.

A cockroach can change directions up to 25 times in a second.

If a cockroach breaks a leg it can grow another one.

The earliest fossil cockroach is about 280 million years old – 80 million years older than the first dinosaurs!

Cockroach can live up to nine days without its head.