Greetings, HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE! Here we are again, Week 2, now for the Friday facts series.
Sea
turtles are unaffected by the sting of the infamous venomous box jellyfish and
regularly eat them.
"The
box jellyfish is the most venomous animal in the world," says the lead
author, Dr Angel Yanagihara of the University of Hawaii's Department of
Tropical Medicine. Aside from causing hapless swimmers excruciating pain or
death, the Box Jelly's venom immediately shocks and kills prey (including fish
and shrimp). The venom contains toxins that attack the heart, nervous system
and skin cells. The venom is so painful, that human victims have died before
even reaching shore as it causes cardiac arrest within minutes through
puncturing holes in red blood cells and causing potassium to leak out of them.
The fastest deaths have been within 2 to 5 minutes. The exceptional survivors
experience pain for weeks, and often have significant scarring where the
tentacles were in touch.
56.7°C (134°F) is the hottest surface temperature ever recorded on Earth
in 1913 at Death Valley, California, United States. No wonder the place is named Death Valley, temperatures about 50°C can be fatal for humans. Previously, the
hottest temperature was recorded at 58°C at El Azizia, Libya, but was recently reviewed (2010-2012) by a World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Commission of Climatology (CCl)
special international panel of meteorological experts. They had several
concerns including; problematical instrumentation, inexperienced
observer and the observation site, and disregarded the temperature reading.
You can’t see the Great Wall of China from space, but you can see
China’s air pollution. China's air pollution is affecting the
temperature rise in Earth's atmosphere. China is the second largest
contributor to global warming in the world. It is a major environmental
issue and a primary health threat. However GOOD NEWS! China has
announced new measures to tackle the country's dishonorable air
pollution. Targets include a 30% reduction in emissions from heavily
polluting industries (such as coal power stations) are to be introduced in order to change the air
pollution by 2017.
Sheep are regularly used for studies related to human medicine because
their weight is very similar to ours, they can produce organs similar in
size to humans and their genome is well known. So it came as no
surprise that scientists from the University of Nevada have created
sheep that are 15% human with the main purpose "to produce a source of
organs, especially livers to transplant someday into humans." Professor
Esmail Zanjani and his team used stem cells (cells that can develop into
many other kinds of cells) from the bone marrow of adult humans. They
placed the cells into the peritoneum (the serous membrane that forms the lining of the abdominal cavity or the coelom)
of a sheep's fetus. These cells get disturbed throughout the metabolic
system into the circulatory system of all the organs in the body
resulting in lambs with millions of human cells in all of their organs
that are genetically identical to the person who donated the bone marrow
cells. In a hypothetical situation a patient that needs a liver would provide their
doctor with their cells which would be injected into a sheep's fetus to grow.
This process could be beneficial for more than 10,000 people in the UK
that currently need a transplant (of which 1000 die each year
progressively). However as there are many implications and
criticisms that are involved, it is still decades away from being
tested on humans.
Ocean water holds nearly 20 million tons of gold. We're not talking
about treasures hidden in the ocean. Gold is in every litre of seawater
and is so dilute one litre contains 13billionths of a gram of gold.
Hope you have enjoyed this weeks Friday facts segment!! Thank you for stopping by. Would you like us to mention a fact in next week Friday facts? Make sure to leave a comment and come back for more articles!!
Bio Bunch.
Over and out.
Hope you have enjoyed this weeks Friday facts segment!! Thank you for stopping by. Would you like us to mention a fact in next week Friday facts? Make sure to leave a comment and come back for more articles!!
Bio Bunch.
Over and out.