The Monument of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro was no less famous than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or, for example, the Statue of Liberty in New York. Therefore, in 2007, the authorities decided to add this monument to the list of New Wonders of the World.
Newborn baby elephants do not know how to control their trunk. There are more than fifty thousand muscles in it, so it takes time for the baby elephant to master them. For about six months, the mother teaches the baby elephant to use the trunk, and only by the first year of life does the baby get to take food and drink, until that moment the baby elephant feeds on mother's milk and drinks water with his mouth for a long time.
The inhabitants of Africa spend 40 billion hours a year collecting fresh water. This is one of the driest regions of the planet, whose inhabitants constantly suffer from a lack of moisture, despite the fact that powerful rivers and the second largest lake in the world, Victoria, are located on the territory of the continent. In the last six years, the introduction of a new technology for collecting water from the air has begun with the help of a special tower constructed from bamboo stalks and biodegradable plastic, which condenses moisture from the air and collects it in containers. Perhaps the creation of a technology that extracts food from the air is not far off.
In order for fig fruits to ripen and get to our table, they need special pollination: a female fig wasp penetrates into the fig inflorescence through a tiny hole from below to reproduce there. It lays eggs and usually dies inside figs. New wasps mature, fertilize right inside the flower, but only female individuals fly out to the «will» to find a new inflorescence of figs and repeat the entire breeding cycle. Females climb into both «male» and «female» fig fruits because they cannot distinguish them, but in the latter, which we eat, the eggs die. Whether we eat dead wasp cubs together with figs is quite possible, and this does not at all reduce the nutritional value of the fruit in fresh and dried form.
Hyperhydration or water intoxication — poisoning with too much water. «Everything is poison, everything is medicine», and even useful water in violation of the drinking regime will cause nausea, headaches, high blood pressure and many other unpleasant symptoms up to a fatal outcome if you drink 3-4 liters in a short period of time. Our kidneys can remove about 20 liters of fluid from the body per day, but a dose of about 0.8-1 liter per hour will be fatal, disrupting the balance of electrolytes and sodium levels in the blood.
An amazing flowering plant called wolfia globulata gives such small fruits [diameter from 0.4 to 0.8 mm] that more than 1000 of these fruits can fit on one human finger. The smallest fruit in the world weighs only 70 mcg. It grows near the shores of lakes, rivers, ponds and ditches, very quickly capturing reservoirs in its homeland — in tropical and subtropical Asia. It was brought to North and South America, where its stems and leaves survive even without roots. The fruit is considered very useful and nutritious, as it is saturated with proteins.
Icebreaker ships do not always break the ice with a sharp nose, the principle of operation of these vessels depends on the thickness of the ice. Only thin ice is cut by the bow, pushing apart and creating a free space behind it. Large thicknesses of ice can be overcome by «crawling» on ice floes and crushing them with their weight. There are many ways to create passages in glacial regions — this is a roll or ballast tanks. Icebreakers are the only way to maintain navigation in freezing waters.
The Australian yakana is a «pond chicken», the male of which is recognized as the most caring father in the world of birds. He can't fly, but he gently carries children under his wings. You can't call him a traveler — he usually creates a family in the same pond where he was born. Swims, dives and walks on the water, or rather on the leaves floating there due to the strikingly elegant limbs. The female chooses a mate from several candidates, leaving the clutch with eggs to the last «lucky one», who takes care of the offspring.
The legend about the appearance of the bass clef says that it was invented by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who got a golf club spinning in the air on his head. He was just in search of the «normal» sound of the Fa note when this «epiphany» happened. No one knows how true this story is, but it really resembles Newton's apple, doesn't it?
Arachnocampa Luminosa are firefly worms inhabiting the oldest cave in New Zealand. These stunning creatures, the same age as their habitat, live only one day, emit a green-blue glow that can illuminate the entire cave. From the outside, it seems that the ceiling of the cave is strewn with many stars. This is one of the few bioluminescent species of land animals, mainly the inhabitants of the deep sea have this ability.
