INTRO INTRO

The platypus - you have seen it on "Phineas and Ferb" most likely. And we can't blame scientists for initially thinking this animal was a hoax. It is funny-looking to say the least. Better to be overly-cautious than too naive, right? Anyway, it is a real animal. It's a mammal that lays eggs (only 2 mammals do that). It is good on land and on the water. They shoot out toxic stingers from their feet... I mean, it is a wonder of nature for sure, an oddball but real animal. Learn more about it on National Geographic.

The Okapi - Is it a zebra crossed with a donkey crossed with a giraffe crossed with a deer? Nope. But it is a species all by itself. Native of Africa, a quiet and solitary creature, they are hard to find. Perhaps that's why scientists thought it was a myth. You can find out more about it on the San Diego Zoo Website.

The maned wolf is not a fox, despite what it looks like. And it's not even a wolf, despite its name. It is a species by itself (again, one of those), a Chrysocyon. Native to South America, it is quite tall and slender (3 feet, 50 pounds), perfect for foraging its habitat and hunting. Learn more about them on Smithsonian's National Zoo Website.

The Amazonian Royal Flycatcher sounds like an official title and looks like a very pompous being. This bird lives in the Amazonian rain forest (duh) and uses its very colorful crown to attract mates and fight other males for territory. Learn more facts about them on Fact Zoo.

Find more incredible-looking real animals on these websites: My Modern Met and Animal Planet.

Bonus: one fantastic beast that is definitely not real: The Unicorn.

world of wonder

On Fridays we feature amazing discoveries and facts, because, yes, the world is full of wonders that are real and natural-occurring (without divine or supernatural intervention).

This week we're looking at tiny, often annoying yet immensely useful and needed stingers: wasps.

world of wonder

On Fridays we feature amazing discoveries and facts, because, yes, the world is full of wonders that are real and natural-occurring (without divine or supernatural intervention).

This week we are going back in time, when giants roamed the earth.

Large animals like elephants, rhinoceroses, and giant squids are amazing to watch and wonder at. But thousands and millions of years ago there were even bigger animals. Thanks to archaeologists and scientists, we know a lot today about those animals too.

The most famous large animals are perhaps dinosaurs. There seems to be so many variations of them (from flying, to small, to large, to herbivore, to carnivorous) and Hollywood movies have made them famous. Although we don’t exactly what dinosaurs looked like (their colors, etc.) because they lived millions of years ago, before humans, we have discovered enough bones and remains to learn a lot about them. One of the most interesting pieces of fossil is actually their poo. Read about how their feces are helping scientists understand more about how dinosaurs lived: BBC.

Thanks to the Ice Age movies, you may know about the Woolly Mammoth. It is believed they existed more than 400 thousand years ago, could reach over 4 meters tall and weigh over 6 tons (12,000 pounds!). It’s called “wooly” because it was covered in fur and long hairs. The Woolly Mammoth became extinct because of climate change (yes, the Ice Age) and being hunted by humans. We know they existed because even as recent as last year we have been discovering their remains. Watch here: National Geographic.

Another large animal that’s extinct is the Steller’s Sea Cow -named after George Stellers, who discovered the creature in 1741. As you can see in the picture, this sea cow closely resembles the Manatee, although it was much bigger (could grow to 8 meters and weighted up to 10 tons!). It was a gentle and tame creature, which made it vulnerable to humans, and in just 27 years it was hunted to extinction.

The Baiji White Dolphin lived for about 20 million years, before humans destroyed it in the last century. As humans used the dolphin’s territory, these creatures were wiped out due to pollution, heavy fishing, and boat propeller accidents. It is not officially extinct, but no one has seen a Baiji White Dolphin since 2002.

As much as we admire and learn about these and other magnificent big creatures that lived before our times, it is important to recognize that, with few exceptions like the dinosaurs, humans are largely responsible for the disappearance of many of these animals -from hunting to destroying their habitat.

If we care about the world we live, we should respect all lives, including animals.

To Read More:

• Huge Kangaroos and 5-meter lizards: Australian giants: BBC.
• These people are trying to bring the Woolly Mammoth back from extinction: Long Now.

world of wonder

On Fridays we feature amazing discoveries and facts, because, yes, the world is full of wonders that are real and natural-occurring (without divine or supernatural intervention).

This week we are going high, high up.

Thanks to the advances in technology, scientists can learn more about space than ever before, and thankfully, they share their discoveries with us.

The Hubble Space Telescope for example, helped scientists understand that Pluto, which has always been considered one of the nine solar planets, doesn’t qualify as a planet after all. It orbits the sun like other planets and it is in our solar system, but it is smaller -so small that it cannot even “clear objects out of its path”. Pluto, is actually a dwarf planet or plutoid, together with Eris and Makemake -other objects found near Pluto.

                                        Pluto photo from NASA

NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration), launched a rover named Curiosity, which arrived to Mars in 2012. Since then, it has been sending photos from Mars, giving us our first intimate glimpse of the planet, and yes, filling our curiosity and giving us more understanding of that planet like never before (no Martians have been found though). The robot has been snapping selfies in different areas of Mars, and NASA even created a 360-degree “virtual reality” video on YouTube -for your pleasure.

                                     Selfie courtesy of NBC News

Satellites continue to be one of the most important tools that scientists use to study space. They are cheaper than rovers and telescopes. They have a clear view of space, clouds, and oceans. They explore asteroids, the history of stars and planets. They take pictures of the planets, the sun, dark matter, and black holes.

 

           The Jason-2 satellite. Credits: NASA

Studying space is exciting. It connects us to the universe. We may even discover a galaxy far away and life somewhere out there one day (basic or intelligent, but life nonetheless).

To Read More:

 - 17 Amazing Hubble Discoveries: Space.com.

- Get Immersed in Curiosity’s 360 Degree mars Dune: Discovery News.

- NASA’s Kids Club: NASA.

- Satellites capture all 26 letters of the ABCs from space: LiveScience.

world of wonder

Deep in the Sea

On Fridays we feature amazing discoveries and facts, because, yes, the world is full of wonders that are real and natural-occurring (without divine or supernatural intervention).

This week we are going deep down.

Space suits, ships, satellites, and telescopes are great for exploring space. But the ocean is more difficult to get into. It’s even called “The Final Frontier” because it hasn’t been explored as much as earth and space.

One of the main issues with exploring deep is visibility. This a typical view from a subsea robot (pretty boring, eh?):

Source: MBARI – Ridges 2005 Expedition

Exploring deep in the ocean is also expensive: “A simple seafloor survey to run a 100 mile pipeline costs a cool $50 million” (Carlyle).

Also, one of the main reasons for exploring space is to discover intelligent life out there or see if we could live in another planet. That is not possible in the sea: “The pressures are too great, and no engineering or materials conceivable today would allow us to build livable-sized spaces on the deep sea floor” (Carlyle).

But, technology does advance to get us in deeper and for longer.

The Census of Marine Life is made up of more than 2,500 scientists from all over the world who took on the challenge of exploring deep, and in the last two decades or so have discovered thousands of previously unknown species, making us more excited about marine life.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has an office for ocean exploration and research funded by the government. They have done several expeditions, including the Gulf of Mexico, Cayman Islands, Indonesia, and even Galapagos Island.

It seems like scientists and the government are pushing forward with their explorations of the deep seas, much to the delight and wonder of the public.

To Read More:

•  8 Bizarre Newly Discovered Deep Sea Creatures: Mother Nature Network.
• Up-to-date collection of new discoveries: Ocean Portal.
• Stunning images of deep sea creatures off the coast of Puerto Rico (VIDEO): Quartz on YouTube.

world of wonder

On Fridays we're going to feature amazing discoveries and facts, because, yes, the world is full of wonders that are real and natural-occurring (without divine or supernatural intervention).

This week we are introducing the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, both buried "alive" by Mount Vesuvius's eruption.

Mt. Vesuvius erupted in late 79 A.D. The eruption most likely lasted for 24 hours, but the pumice and volcanic ash continued to pour for two more days, burying the towns and its people under its path. The eruption was sudden and fast (people didn’t even know Vesuvius was a volcano), not giving much of a chance for many survivors. An estimated 25,000 people died. But there were a few survivors, such as Pliny the Younger, whose account (he wrote what he saw and his interviews with other survivors) is where we find much of what we know about what happened those days.

Pompeii wasn’t destroyed. It was buried and because of the lack air and humidity it was preserved -its art, texts, artifacts, buildings, even bodies. Pompeii served as testimony of how Romans lived, their culture, their everyday life, which is really important because Rome was the most important nation at the time, but Pompeii provided another reference, not only from the city of Rome.

You may be familiar with Pompeii, since it's more popular and well known, but an adjacent city, Herculaneum, was also buried by Vesuvius (as were other smaller villages in the area) and later rediscovered and it has been better preserved. Since Pompeii was discovered first, was a larger city, and very popular it has suffered from being mismanaged by excavators, the government, and the visitors. But Herculaneum has been very well taken care of by archaeologists and conservators.

“Pompeii is spectacular; Herculaneum more real,” said Judy Lawrence of England, who visited both sites this summer. “This place makes you cry.” (NY Times)

Today, some of the art pieces and texts extracted from Pompeii and Herculaneum are in museums, but most of it is still in the cities, preserved for the millions of visitors who go there every year.

To Read More:

- 25 Mind-blowing facts about the Pompeii destruction: List25.

- Herculaneum (Ercolano): A Buried Treasure: Life in Italy.

- Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum by A Wallace-Hadrill (Princeton University Press, 1994): at your local Library or Amazon.com.

world of wonder