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C O W P A T S |
EYE
OPENING ECO FACTS |
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An airport has been ‘billed’ for contributing to climate change. An
environmental group presented the Bristol Airport with a bill for pollution. Flights from
the city are producing 580,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, it said. And adds that 344
square miles of trees need to be planted to compensate for these emissions. The bill will
get larger. For, the number of passengers is estimated to rise from five million to around
nine million in the next decade.
The
tooth fairy must be really generous to the sand tiger sharks. When one tooth wears off
another one pops into place. These sharks have rows of replacement teeth that move up into
place when a tooth gets damaged. In just one year, a sand tiger shark may grow, use and
lose as many as 1,000 teeth. South Africans have a special name for them "ragged
tooth."
For all you climbers, who flock to the rocks when you get a
chance, try some other sport. Research shows that even the most environmentally sensitive
rock climbers may be hurting the snails that thrive in rocky cracks and crevices. It has
been found that climbers can wipe snails out in communities. Every third snail is crushed
upon in ‘climbed’ areas. |
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A dentist would have a hard time with a viperfish. Its teeth are
too big to fit inside its mouth. These fang-like teeth are great for trapping and piercing
other small fish. A viperfish can open its jaw really wide and its stomach can expand to
at least twice its normal size. During the day, it hunts deep down in the ocean, plunging
to 1000 feet. At night, they come up to shallower waters where food is more plentiful.
A two headed tortoise? It was the last of the 14 hatchlings of an
endangered species in Dorchester in England. Like most tortoises, this one also eats and
walks around. The right head is more dominant. When one head is eating, the body moves
away from the food because the other head sees food somewhere else.
Are two-headed tortoises rare? It is uncommon, but not unheard of. Recent reports mention
a two-headed tortoise hatched in South Africa in 2003.
 A 2000-year-old leather shoe has been found in the UK, the oldest
in the country. The shoe was taken out of a tree in a quarry in Somerset. The lace holes
and stitches are still visible on the leather. The shoe is around the same size as a
modern nine, suggesting the owner to be a man. Scientists find it unusual to see the
leather and the wood in such good condition after many years.
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| Somewhere over the
moonbow |
Two
fishermen in Kahuku in Hawaii, saw a black rainbow stretching from the mountains to the
ocean at night. Can a black rainbow occur at night? "Moonbows" coincide with a
full moon and are the result of light refracting through water droplets in the atmosphere.
On a clear sky, a bright full moon acts like the sun and you will see a rainbow at night.
The rainbow may appear black, but all the colours are there. It's just that there is no
blue sky to provide the background.
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