CAT:

• The domestic cat (Felis catus or Felis silvestris catus) is a small, usually furry, domesticated, and carnivorous mammal. It is often called the housecat when kept as an indoor pet, or simply the cat when there is no need to distinguish it from other felids and felines. Cats are often valued by humans for companionship and their ability to hunt vermin and household pests.
• Cats are similar in anatomy to the other felids, with strong, flexible bodies, quick reflexes, sharp retractable claws, and teeth adapted to killing small prey. Cat senses fit a crepuscular and predatory ecological niche. Cats can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by mice and other small game. They can see in near darkness. Like most other mammals, cats have poorer color vision and a better sense of smell than humans.
• Despite being solitary hunters, cats are a social species, and cat communication includes the use of a variety of vocalizations (meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling and grunting) as well as cat pheromones and types of cat-specific body language.
• Cats have a rapid breeding rate. Under controlled breeding, they can be bred and shown as registered pedigree pets, a hobby known as cat fancy. Failure to control the breeding of pet cats by spaying and neutering, and the abandonment of former household pets, has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, requiring population control.
• Since cats were cult animals in ancient Egypt, they were commonly believed to have been domesticated there, but there may have been instances of domestication as early as the Neolithic.
• A genetic study in 2007 revealed that domestic cats are descended from African wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica) c. 8000 BCE, in the Middle East.According to Scientific American, cats are the most popular pet in the world, and are now found almost every place where people live.

THE AMAZING ELECTRIC FISHES

• The electric organs are specialized organs, derived from the muscles or the nerve cell's axon, that can generate electric current, employed from catching the prey (electro-paralysis) to defense, orientation (electro-location, similar the way bats and dolphins use ultrasounds in ecolocation), or as a means of communication, for mating, feeding or territory defense. The electric fish, producing electricity, are electrogenic, but as they sense the electricity they are also electroreceptive.
• There are species that are not electrogenic, being only electroreceptive, detecting the weak fields generated by their prey (any living thing generates a weak electric field, which could be just 0.01 microvolts), like sharks, rays (except the electric ones, which are also electrogenic), lungfishes and even ... the platypus (a mammal!). It clearly appears that electricity works only in water.

DINOSAUR FACTS FOR KIDS

• Enjoy our fun dinosaur facts for kids and learn about everything from the ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex to the enormous Diplodocus.
• While dinosaurs came a long time before us humans, fossils and modern technology have helped us piece together what dinosaurs may have looked like and even how they might have behaved. Read on for a wide range of cool dinosaur facts that are perfect for kids.
• The word dinosaur comes from the Greek language and means ‘terrible lizard’. The word was coined by English paleontologist Richard Owen in 1842 and was meant to refer to Dinosaurs impressive size rather than their scary appearance.
• Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for over 160 million years, from the Triassic period around 230 million years ago through the Jurassic period and until the end of the Cretaceous period around 65 million years ago.
• The time period from 250 million years ago until around 65 million years ago is known as the Mesozoic Era. It is often referred to as the Age of the Dinosaurs because most dinosaurs developed and became extinct during this time.
• It is believed that dinosaurs lived on Earth until around 65 million years ago when a mass extinction occurred.
• Scientists believe that the event leading to the extinction may have been a massive asteroid impact or huge volcanic activity. Events such as these could have blocked out sunlight and significantly changed the Earth’s ecology.
• The first dinosaur to be formally named was the Megalosaurus, back in 1824.
• A person who studies dinosaurs is known as a paleontologist.
• Rather than being carnivores (meat eaters), the largest dinosaurs such as the Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus were actually herbivores (plant eaters).
• To help fight meat eaters such as the Allosaurus or Spinosaurus, many plant eaters had natural weapons at their disposal. Examples of this include the spikes on the tail of the Stegosaurus and the three horns attached to the front of the Triceratops’s head shield.
• Pterodactyls are not dinosaurs, they were flying reptiles that lived during the age of dinosaurs but by definition they do not fall into the same category. The same goes for water based reptiles such as Plesiosaurs.
• Birds descended from a type of dinosaurs known as theropods.
• Despite being long extinct, dinosaurs are frequently featured in the media. One of the more memorable examples of this is Michael Crichton’s 1990 book Jurassic Park. Adapted to movie in 1993, the story features cloned dinosaurs brought to life with the help of DNA found in mosquitoes trapped in amber.

Amazing Science Facts

This list explores a variety of fascinating scientific facts that you probably are unaware of. Science is still a very mysterious subject so there are millions of trivial facts about it-this will be the first of many scientific fact lists in the future.

Facts: 1 – 5

1. There are 62,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body – laid end to end they would circle the earth 2.5 times

2. At over 2000 kilometers long, The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on Earth

3. The risk of being struck by a falling meteorite for a human is one occurrence every 9,300 years

4. A thimbleful of a neutron star would weigh over 100 million tons

5. A typical hurricane produces the energy equivalent of 8,000 one megaton bombs

AMAZING INFORMATION