Where is Easter Island? 0 comments

Easter Island, one of the most mysterious islands in the world, is in the South Pacific 2,000 miles west of Caldera in Chile and 1,000 miles east of Pitcairn, its nearest inhabited neighbour. It was annexed by Chile in 1888. The island which is volcanic in origin, was discovered by the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen on Easter Sunday, 1722. It is 11 miles long and 15 miles wide.
Easter Island is noted for its mysterious statues of remote and unknown. origin. These statues, consisting of giant heads facing inland, fringe the island’s coastline. They stand on huge ramparts or platforms which slope landwards, in some cases to a width of 250 feet. At the end of this sloping rampart there is a paved area.
There are some 260 of these platforms on the island and each one was designed- to support between one and 15 of the strange giant heads, carved from compressed volcanic earth. The heads have upturned faces tilted towards the sky, and long ears. They vary in height from 12 to 20 feet. At one time they were topped by huge hats or crowns between six and eight feet in diameter. These hats are made from a red volcanic material different from the material used for the heads themselves.
The island is full of ancient curiosities including long, narrow boat-shaped houses flanked by stone chicken huts. The inhabitants are descendants of Polynesian people who migrated across the Pacific.
There is a legend of a war between the “long-eared” people and their “short-eared” attackers. The long-eared defenders of the island were said to have been burned in a vast earth ovan, but the latest scientific evidence suggests that the “earth oven” was in fact a vast defensive ditch. Ashes in this ditch date from the 17th Century, only a short time before - the island’s discovery.
But the real truth about Easter Island and its mysterious statues will probably never be known until someone finds out how to read the curious sign language inscribed round the platforms. These signs, which are geometrical in form, are really symbols such as birds, plants and fishes. They may be like the “memory aids” of the ancient Aztecs, but experts believe they are an elementary form of writing.

Why don’t ducks feel cold in icy water? 0 comments

Ducks have a wonderful coat of feathers, which is specially designed to keep them warm and snug in even the coldest weather. First of all, they have an undercoat of soft downy feathers, which grow very close together, and trap a ‘cushion’ of air next to the duck’s body. This stops the natural warmth of their bodies escaping into the cold outside. As for their top feathers, they protect these with a special oil which is secreted from a gland in their bodies. When you watch a duck preening its feathers, it is spreading this oil all over them, making its top coat of feathers completely waterproof. Neither water nor cold can penetrate the feathers from the outside, and the body warmth cannot escape through the down, and so the lucky duck stays warm and dry. Would you like a coat of feathers like that?

When can a baby see clearly? 0 comments

Babies can generally see clearly by the time they are three to four months old. At birth they cannot focus on objects or control their eyes. Strong light upsets them.
After a month babies are able to focus on objects for a few moments at a time. After three months they can recognize things and follow their movements.

Whyis cod-liver oil, which tastes so nasty, so good for us? 0 comments

Not so long ago, parents used to place a small glass beside their children’s plate. This contained a liquid which tasted as horrible as it smelled. How many generations of children have suffered from this oil extracted from cod’s liver! Even adults considered it particularly loathsome and nauseating. And yet it is one of Nature’s ways of caring for us. Cod-liver oil contains, in large quantities, two vitamins which are essential to life.
Vitamins are substances with very important functions. They help our body to make use of substances which it cannot do without, and which can only be assimilated with their help. They help to transform inert secretion into active secretions. Although they are effective in very low doses, they have to be present regularly in our food, because they ‘are delicate and quickly destroyed.

Cod-liver oil contains vitamins A and D. Vitamin A promotes growth, helps wounds to heal, strengthens our defenses against germs, helps in manufacturing healthy hormones for reproduction and assists in the renewal of the red pigment found in the rods of the retina. (The rods are sensitive to light changes.) Vitamin D helps the body to assimilate the calcium necessary for healthy bones. A lack of vitamin D causes rickets: the skeleton develops badly, the bones are brittle, soft and deformed.
This is what may happen to a person who does not take vitamin A: loss of night vision, lesions of the eyes which can turn into a mass’ of pus, poor growth and all sorts of germs easily caught.... Frightening isn’t it? Now you understand why the ‘cod-liver oil treatment’ has been inflicted on so many children. If you have never taken any, you may become alarmed. Do not worry: vitamin A and D are not found only in cod-liver oil. They are also found “in butter, milk, egg yolk - and in certain pharmaceutical preparations. Besides, now you can take a course of fish oil without being upset by the taste and smell. Nowadays, the fish oil is inclosed in capsules, which do not open up until they reach the intestine.

What makes teeth chatter? 0 comments

Your teeth chatter when you are cold or afraid. This is because your muscles become tense and no longer control your teeth in the normal way.
Little children’s teeth often chatter when they come out of the water. This is because the cold has cramped their muscles.
Similarly, your body may lose its normal controls. If you are frightened, for instance, you could be sick with fear if your diaphragm muscles contracted.

What are the doldrums? 0 comments

The doldrums is a zone near the equator where the rising hot air creates calms and variable winds, together with thunderstorms, the zone of equatorial calms.
There are two areas of doldrums calms - one in the Atlantic Ocean between the west coast of America and the north-east coast of South America, and the other in the Pacific Ocean off the north-west coast of South America.
In the days of sail, ships were often delayed in these areas; the most famous being the Pinta, Nina and’ the Santa Maria, the ships of Christopher Columbus, which were becalmed in the doldrums during their famous voyage.
The expression “in the doldrums” means to be in low spirits.

Why do heartbeats make a noise? 0 comments

It is impossible to put your ear to your chest to listen to your own heart beating. And not everybody has a stethoscope to listen to his neighbour’s. However, films and documentaries have let you hear the very characteristic rhythmic beat, which modern composers have sometimes imitated in their music. It is the heart valves that produce the familiar double heartbeat sound, known to doctors as ‘lub’ and ‘dup’. The first sound, which lasts for approximately one-tenth of a second, is dull and muffled; the second, which follows fairly closely, is shorter and sharper. These two sounds are followed by a relative silence (approximately half a second for a person at rest). Sometimes a third sound is heard, one-tenth of a second after the second sound.