Did you know?

• SINGAPORE’S ‘Live Turtle and Tortoise Museum has more than 1500 animals representing dozens of species including ‘Double happiness’ - a two headed, six legged turtle. • An abducted 12 year old Ethiopian girl was rescued by three lions I June 2005, they chased the kidnappers away and protected her until her family arrived. • Dogs have about 100 different facial expressions, most of them made with the ears. . Goat’s eyes have rectangular pupils. Butterflies taste with their hind feet. • Yak milk is pink in color. a yak is a long-haired bovine found throughout the Himalayan region of south Central Asia, the Tibetan Plateau and as far north as Mongolia and Russia. • There are only three animals with blue tongues: the black bear, the Chow Chow dog and the blue-tongued lizard. • Sound can travel through water at 1,507m a second. That is about three times faster than sound travelling through air - 331m a second. • Metal pipes often burst when the water inside them turns to ice. This is because water expands when it freezes. It also becomes lighter. If ice did not float on water the seas would gradually turn to ice and no life would be able to survive on Earth. • The Asian elephant has the longest tail of any land mammal. Excluding the tuft of hair on the end, the tail can be up to 1.5m long. • The praying mantis (igitambara) is the only insect that can turn its head 360 degrees. The praying mantis only has one ear. • The ozone layer is a layer of concentrated ozone gas about 24 km (15 miles) up in the atmosphere. It protects us from the Sun’s harmful ultra-violet rays. However, this vitally important layer is being destroyed through the use of aerosol cans containing chloro-fluoro-carbons or CFC’s. Save the world by planting trees. • At night, the surface of the Indian Ocean sparkles with light. The light is made by tiny sea plants called dinoflagellates. Large numbers of the plants give off enough light for you to be able to read. The lights sometimes form the shape of a wheel, which may be up to 1.5 km (1 mile) wide. • Baby birds have an “egg tooth” to help them break out of the shell. This is a tiny knob at the tip of the beak. Most chicks take about 30 minutes to an hour to hatch out, but chicks of large albatrosses may need six days to get out of their tough eggshell • The human body needs iron to help perform a number of important functions. Iron helps carry oxygen (in red blood cells) to parts of your body in the form of hemoglobin. Not having enough can lead to iron deficiency and symptoms such as weakness and fatigue. • Onions might taste good but they can be painful to chop. A gas is released when you cut onions that irritates you eyes, the tears you produce while this happens are your body’s way of washing it from your eyes. jamiefrings@yahoo.com