Giant centipedes prey on 3,700 birds a year!
Phillip Island Centipede with adult black-winged petrels | L. Halpin
In nature, centipedes have many natural predators, and many birds prey on centipedes, but there is one species of centipede that eats birds! Scientists at universities in Australia and the United States have found that there is a species of Phillip Island centipede in Australia that eats seabirds.
The Phillip Island centipede is a giant centipede that can grow up to 30 centimeters long and secrete venom. The Phillip Island centipede usually hunts at night, under the cover of fallen leaves and meadows. Scientists have observed that centipedes attack chicks and then eat them starting at the back of their necks.
Scientists have found that the Phillip Island centipede can poison a chick in a minute. The centipede population in Phillip Island eats about 2109 to 3724 chicks a year, and being preyed on by centipedes is also the main cause of chick death. In addition, Phillip Island centipedes eat crickets, geckos and fish.
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Can discarded masks be used to build houses?
The source | pixabay
Disposable medical masks contain a lot of plastic, and natural degradation takes more than 400 years. Therefore, a large number of discarded masks will pose a serious threat to the ecological environment of the earth. Discarded masks are not useless, though.
Scientists at Washington State University in the United States have found that discarded masks can be used to build houses. They removed the ear rope and metal strip of the mask, cut the mask cloth into 5 to 30 mm long pieces, and then added graphene oxide solution to make a "mask pulp". These mask slurries can be mixed with cement to obtain "mask cement". Experimental results show that although the compressive resistance of "mask cement", which accounts for 0.1% of masks, has decreased by 3%, the tensile strength of splitting has increased by 47%!
Scientists will further study the durability of "mask cement", and the higher the durability of cement, the longer the service life. If the use of "mask cement" can extend the service life of the building, it will not only reduce the pollution of masks, but also reduce the carbon emissions generated by reconstruction, which is more environmentally friendly.
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How big can the pod grow? 1 meter long!
The source | wikimedia
There are about 30 species of plants in the legume family Umera worldwide, and 3 species in China. These plants can produce huge pod fruits, more than ten centimeters wide and up to 1 meter long!
It is a vine that must climb other trees or objects to grow upwards. But the vines are strong, some thicker than a human arm, and their appearance is spiral-shaped. In the wild, the vine stems of the maple vine can even connect the two banks of the river, which is an important tool for small animals to cross the river, so the vine is also called "river dragon".
However, the vine is a poisonous food, and the fruit cannot be eaten at will, otherwise there will be nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath and so on. However, the roots, stems and seeds of the vine can be made into medicinal herbs to treat rheumatic joint pain and other diseases.
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Send 4 people to Mars for 30 days!
The source | pixabay
Recently, NASA unveiled a manned landing on Mars, which is expected to send up to 4 astronauts to Mars in the late 2030s and early 2040s to complete a 30-day science mission, of which 2 astronauts will land on the surface of Mars.
However, achieving this goal will face a number of serious challenges. The closest distance between Mars and Earth is about 55 million kilometers, and it takes about 500 days to travel between Earth and Mars. The gravity of Mars is only about 2/5 of that of Earth, and astronauts will be in a microgravity environment for a long time and need to work in this environment. NASA said it might consider having astronauts work in pressurized rovers. Therefore, NASA will first perform an unmanned mission to launch a 25-ton "space express" to Mars to deliver related materials.
Perhaps with the efforts of scientists, humans can really live on Mars in the future.
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"Frozen Zoo"
The San Diego Zoo preserves the samples in a freezer tank | CNN
As of 2021, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species includes more than 38,000 species at risk of extinction. In order to save these endangered animals, in 1976, American scientists launched the "Frozen Zoo" project at the San Diego Zoo in California, USA, to collect and freeze samples of endangered animals. Currently, the frozen zoo preserves more than 10,500 samples of 1,220 endangered animal species.
With these animal samples, cloning techniques can be used in the future to increase the populations of certain endangered animals. Since 2001, the Frozen Zoo has successfully cloned four endangered animals, namely the Indian bison, the Javanese bison, the Przewalski's wild horse and the black-footed ferret.
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Curiosity is a general children's magazine in all fields, each issue of the magazine includes four major sections, covering five fields of science and technology, nature, history, culture and literature. Curiosity is also one of the most popular children's general studies magazines in China.