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Spotted Salamander

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Spotted Salamander

Did the spotted salamander lose a body part? No problem! It can be regenerated.

  • A spotted salamander is an amphibian that moves through a metamorphosis process, from a water dwelling creature to one that spends its time on land, except for breeding purposes.
  • Adult spotted salamanders can grow to lengths of 15 to 25 centimetres (5.9 to 9.8 inches), and they look similar to a lizard due to their short legs and tail.
  • Spotted salamanders are native to the United States and Canada, in North America, and are also known as ‘yellow-spotted salamanders’ and have the scientific name Ambystoma maculatum.
  • Spotted salamanders are nocturnal and live among rocks, logs, leaves, or in abandoned burrows in forest habitats, that contain temporary water sources during the rainy season, and they usually stay hidden unless it is damp or raining.
  • Spotted salamanders have the family name Ambystomatidae, the family of mole salamanders, and are one of the 32 species of the genus Ambystoma, the only genus in the family.
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Spotted Salamander
Image courtesy of Brian Gratwicke/Flickr
  • Spotted salamanders are primarily coloured black, but they can also be dark blue, brown, grey or green , and they are patterned with yellow to orange spots.
  • Female spotted salamanders lay an average of two hundred eggs in temporary freshwater ponds that lack much wildlife, like fish, during the rainy season, typically breeding in the same hole annually, reached by the same route.
  • When threatened, spotted salamanders release a poisonous substance on enemies, although they generally prefer to stay out of danger by hiding.
  • Spotted salamanders can regrow body parts, from organs to limbs, and while they only have up to a 10% survival rate in the pool of water, once they change to their adult form they can live to 20 or 30 years.
  • Spotted salamanders’ diet mainly consists of spiders, insects, bugs, worms and slugs that they catch with their sticky tongue, and they are preyed upon by snakes, birds, raccoons and other creatures.
Bibliography:
Spotted Salamander, 2014, National Geographic, http://animals.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/amphibians/spotted-salamander/
Spotted Salamander, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_salamander
Stout, N. and G. Hammond, Ambystoma maculatum, 2007, Animal Diversity Web, http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/accounts/Ambystoma_maculatum/

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Highlighter

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Highlighter

Only the highlights appear in these highlighter facts!

  • Highlighters are stationery items in the form of a pen, used to highlight, or mark, text.
  • Highlighter ink is typically brightly coloured, often fluorescent, and see-through.
  • Highlighters typically come in colours of yellow, blue, green, pink, orange and purple, although the most prevalent colour is yellow.
  • Highlighters are similar to a felt-tip pen, except they contain a different ink.
  • Highlighters are believed to have been invented by the United States’ Carter’s Ink Company in 1963, and were called a Hi-Liter, soon after Yukio Horie, from Japan, had invented the water-based marker the year prior.

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  • Yellow coloured highlighters are generally not visible on a photocopied document of a highlighted original.
  • Different colours of highlighters can be used to organise groups of ideas or texts.
  • Highlighters can be stacked together, waxy, retractable, three in one, take the form of a pencil, or have non-seeping ink.
  • A dry line highlighter is a tape that is applied to the page, and has the advantage that it can be erased without much difficulty.
  • Digital documents can be highlighted by selecting text, in a similar way to standard highlighting.

 

Bibliography:
Highlighter, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlighter
Greenbaum H & Rubinstein D, The Hand-held Highlighter, 2012, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/magazine/the-hand-held-highlighter.html?_r=1

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Salina Turda

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Salina Turda

Salina Turda is a salt mine, theme park and museum – all underground!

  • Salina Turda is the world’s deepest underground entertainment park and museum, and has its origins as a salt mine.
  • Salina Turda is located in Cluj County, in the region of Transylvania, in Europe’s Romania.
  • Salina Turda was mined from as early as 1075 AD, in Medieval Europe, until its closure in 1932, for table salt.
  • Salina Turda underwent an improvement program costing €5.8 million, that began in 2008 and was completed in 2010.
  • Salina Turda has four main mines and a number of other rooms, that either contain historic equipment, or are impressively shaped, and some feature large stalactites and other salt formations.
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Part of Salina Turda
Image courtesy of Cristian Bortes/Flickr
  • Salina Turda contains constructions that are strange in appearance, often compared with science fiction architecture, with the tube lighting adding to the effect.
  • Salina Turda is said to have very clean air and limited bacteria, as well as a constant temperature of 11°C to 12°C (52°F to 53.5°F), and its environment therefore does not trigger asthmatic reactions.
  • Salina Turda mines are as deep as 120 metres (394 feet), and others are 108 metres (354 feet) and 42 metres (138 feet) deep, and they are connected by narrow corridors.
  • Salina Turda is a popular tourist destination, and it has an underground lake that can be travelled on via boat, a Ferris wheel, mini golf course, bowling lanes, sports field, amphitheatre, billiard tables, table tennis, a spa treatment room and more.
  • At different times in the 20th century, Salina Turda was used as an antiaircraft shelter and a cheese storage facility, and it opened for tourism in 1992.
Bibliography:
Ryan R, Salina Turda salt mine in Romania is now an underground theme park, 2014, News, http://www.news.com.au/travel/world-travel/salina-turda-salt-mine-in-romania-is-now-an-underground-theme-park/story-e6frfqai-1227016762579
Turda Salt Mine, 2013, Salina Turda, http://salinaturda.eu/salt-mine-turda/?lang=en
Salina Turda, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salina_Turda
Salina turda salt mines turned subterranean history museum, 2013, Designboom Architecture, http://www.designboom.com/architecture/salina-turda-salt-mines-turned-subterranean-history-museum-11-30-2013/

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Candied Fruit

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Candied Fruit

Candied fruit prevents fruit from spoiling – and tastes good too!

  • Candied fruits are food items, in particular fruit, that have been preserved by a sweetener, usually sugar.
  • ‘Candied fruit’ is also known as ‘crystallised fruit’, ‘frosted fruit’, ‘glacé fruit’ and ‘glazed fruit’, although the candying processes may vary among the terms.
  • Candied fruit is typically candied by letting fresh or rehydrated fruit boil, and then sit in sugar syrup, and the sugar content of the syrup is gradually increased each day.
  • Candied fruit can take from a few days to many months to become completely candied, and dried fruit will achieve this outcome faster.
  • The candied fruit method causes the water to be extracted from the fruit and replaced with sugar, and this creates a type of pressure that repels some microorganisms that helps to preserve the fruit.

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  • Cherries are the most commonly candied fruit, and other fruits include oranges and their peel, mandarins, figs, melons, and pineapples, and lemon peels, chestnuts and ginger are also often candied.
  • Candied fruit is typically sold and stored in airtight containers, so moisture cannot spoil the fruit, and it is popularly used in desserts and baked goods, most notably in fruitcake.
  • Candied fruit is said to have originated from the Middle Eastern Arabs, as an important banquet food, which spread into Europe most likely in the 1500s.
  • Of all candied fruits, limes are one of the most difficult to successfully candy due to the chemicals in the rind, and usually the process is only achieved in commercial settings.
  • Candied fruit is approximately 80% sugar, and usually contains small amounts of fibre and manganese.
Bibliography:
Candied Fruit, 2011, Cooks Info, http://www.cooksinfo.com/candied-fruit
Candied Fruit, 2013, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candied_fruit
What is Candied Fruit?, 2014, WiseGEEK, http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-candied-fruit.htm

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Robin Williams

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Robin Williams

“You’re only given one little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it” – Robin Williams

  • Robin Williams was a prominent actor, comedian, screenwriter and film producer, that started acting in the early 1970s, continuing on until his death in 2014, and a significant component of his work was unscripted and improvised.
  • Robin McLaurin Williams, or ‘Robin Williams’ as he was known, was born in Chicago in the United States state of Illinois, on 21 July, 1951, and he was the great, great grandson of governor Anselm J McLaurin from Mississippi.
  • Robin Williams was nominated for and received numerous awards during his lifetime, gaining two Emmys, five Grammys, four Golden Globes, an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in the film Good Will Hunting, and the Golden Globe Cecil B DeMille Award for ‘outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment’.
  • Robin Williams died on 11 August, 2014, in California’s Marin County, in the United States, and despite being a well-loved actor, it is believed he hung himself after suffering from significant depression.
  • Robin Williams attended New York’s Juilliard School and became successfully popular as an alien in 1978 on Happy Days, a television show, that launched his acting career and led to his leading role in the television series Mork and Mindy that ran from 1978 to 1982.
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Robin Williams
Image courtesy of Eva Rinaldi/Flickr
  • Robin Williams has been featured in 80 films, including Popeye (1980), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poet’s Society (1989), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Night at the Museum (2006) and Happy Feet (2006), and also made numerous television appearances.
  • In 1993, Robin Williams had a dispute with The Walt Disney Company, due to the belief that the company broke their agreement of the use of his character, Genie in the marketing of the Aladdin film, in 1992.
  • From the 1970s to 1980s, Robin Williams was addicted to drugs and alcohol, and after years of self-restraint, he resumed drinking alcohol in 2003, although later he attended rehabilitation to overcome his addiction.
  • Robin Williams was married to Valerie Velardi from 1978 to 1988, Marsha Garces from 1989 to 2008 and Susan Schneider from 2011 until his death in 2014, and he had three children named Zachary, Zelda and Cody, born in the years of 1983, 1989 and 1991, respectively.
  • Robin Williams enjoyed playing electronic games and was an avid cyclist and enthusiast, and in 2003 is said to have owned more than 50 bicycles.
Bibliography:
Robin Williams, 2014, Bio, http://www.biography.com/people/robin-williams-9532797
Robin Williams, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Williams

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Tiger Shark

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Tiger Shark

Underwater tigers – presenting the tiger shark.

  • Tiger sharks are large fish, or sharks, located in the warmer oceans of the earth, and are commonly found in coastal waters.
  • Tiger sharks are the sole species of the Galeocerdo genus, and are from the family Carcharhinidae, the family of requiem sharks.
  • Tiger sharks have the scientific name Galeocerdo cuvier, and are also known as ‘sea tigers’, ‘man-eater sharks’ and ‘spotted sharks’.
  • Tiger sharks grow to be 3.0 to 5.5 metres (9.8 to 18 feet) in length, and weigh 385 to 1,524 kilograms (848 to 3,360 pounds) in weight.
  • Tiger sharks are coloured generally in a combination of blue or green and grey, black and white and are typically patterned with dark stripes.
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Tiger Shark
Image courtesy of Gord Webster/Flickr
  • Tiger sharks eat a wide variety of items, but their diets typically consist of fish, birds, marine mammals and molluscs, as well as man-made rubbish.
  • The tiger shark is second only to the great white shark, as the most common to attack humans, even though it is an uncommon for them to strike.
  • Tiger sharks are commonly hunted for their skin, fin, flesh and liver, the latter containing a significant amount of vitamin A, used to create vitamin rich oil.
  • Female tiger sharks give birth to fully developed young, numbering from 10 to 80, after they have been forming internally for up to 16 months, and they have an approximate lifespan of 30 to 50 years.
  • Tiger sharks can move at speeds of 32 kilometres per hour (20 miles per hour), even though they generally move slowly through the water.
Bibliography:
Tiger shark, 2014, A-Z Animals, http://a-z-animals.com/animals/tiger-shark/
Tiger shark, 2014, National Geographic, http://animals.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/fish/tiger-shark/
Tiger shark, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_shark

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