Author Archives: Cris

Forbidden City

By | |
Comments Off on Forbidden City
Forbidden City

The city is not forbidden but entered by many.

  • The Forbidden City is found in the centre of China’s capital city, Beijing, and is now a museum as well as a major tourist destination in China, attracting almost 10 million visitors annually.
  • The Forbidden City is a 720,000 square meter (7.8 million square feet) rectangular complex, surrounded by a 10 metre (32 ft) high wall and a 52 metre (71 ft) wide moat.
  • The Forbidden city was built to accommodate emperor Zhu Di, and has housed 24 emperors from 1420 until 1912, although the last emperor, Puyi stayed on in the Inner Court until his eviction in 1924.
  • The Forbidden City is a complex of over 800 buildings, including palaces, temples and halls as well as rivers, parks, lakes and other outdoor beauties.
  • The Forbidden City is also known as the ‘Palace Museum’, the ‘Imperial Palace’ and the ‘Forbidden Palace’.

 Forbidden City, dark, Red, Sunlight, people, front, red, Beijing, 2011, flickr, Ten Random Facts

Forbidden City
Image courtesy of Daniel Thornton/Flickr
  • Until 1912 no one was allowed to enter the Forbidden City unless they gained the Emperor’s permission, however, due to the Chinese emperor’s abdication in 1912, the outer court became open to the public.
  • It is said that over a million people worked on the Forbidden City from 1400 to 1420 AD, including 100,000 artisans.
  • The Forbidden City was originally decorated with dragons, stone animals, arches, rails, beams and staircases lined with yellows and reds, and a process of major repair and restoration began in 2005 on the ‘city’, which was said to take more than 15 years.
  • The Forbidden City was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 and is sited as the largest group of  historic wooden structures.
  • The Forbidden City has over 1 million artifacts, and to preserve these during the Japanese invasion of China, they were packed and moved to three different locations in 1933, where they stayed for approximately 12 years.
Bibliography:
Bonavia D, Peking, 1978, TIME-LIFE International, Amsterdam
Forbidden City, 2013, Wikipedia, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City>

Williams B, Ancient China, 1996, Heinemann Children’s Reference, Great Britain

Amazon:   

Eggplant

By | |
Leave a comment
Eggplant

Eggplants do not grow eggs!

  • Eggplants are native to India and are known as ‘aubergines’ in Europe and ‘eggplants’ in America, and are also called ‘brinjal’, ‘melongene’ and ‘guinea squash’.
  • An eggplant’s scientific name is solanum melongena and the belong to the family Solanaceae, which is the family of nightshades, and they are related to tomatoes and potatoes.
  • Eggplants are typically dark purple vegetables that grow 12 to 25 cm (4.5 to 9 inches) in length and have a spongy light coloured flesh, although they come in all different shapes, sizes and colours including an almost black colour, green, orange, white, and yellow.
  • Eggplant plants are a perennial tropical plant that grow to 40 to 150 cm (16 to 57 inches) in height and have a white to purple coloured flower.
  • Eggplants were named ‘eggplants’ in the 1700s in Europe, because some eggplants were white in colour and looked like bird eggs.

Eggplant, Purple, Fat Long, Black, One, Single, Australia, Vegetable, Ten Random Facts

  • Eggplants behave like a sponge during the cooking process, and can be baked, fried, stewed, grilled, steamed and stuffed, whilst also featuring in two of the most famous eggplant dishes, moussaka and  ratatouille.
  • Eggplants become more bitter with age, although are usually cooked to avoid or reduce the often bitter taste they have, and are sometimes cut, salted and rinsed before cooking to remove some of the bitterness and so that they absorb less oil or other liquid.
  • China produced 58% of the total world production of nearly 42 million tonnes (41 million tons) of eggplants in 2010, and cultivated eggplants use more than 4 million acres (1.6 million hectares) of land worldwide.
  • Eggplants have the highest nicotine content than all edible plants, although you would need to eat 9kg (20 pounds) of eggplant to match the quantity of nicotine in one cigarette.
  • Some people are allergic to eggplants, which can cause reactions of itchiness, headaches and stomach irritation.
Bibliography:
Eggplant, 2013, World’s Healthiest Foods, < http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=22>
Eggplant, 2013, Wikipedia, < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggplant>

Amazon:     

Ostrich

By | |
Leave a comment
Ostrich

Huge, heavy ostriches.

  • Ostriches are big, black, grey and sandy coloured birds, which cannot fly and have long legs and necks.
  • Ostriches are native to the savannahs and deserts of most of Africa, and often travel and graze with peaceful African animals such as zebras or giraffes.
  • The scientific name of ostriches is Struthio camelus and are from the family Struthionidae, which is a family of flightless birds, or ratites.
  • Ostriches weigh between 63 to 145 kg (140 to 320 pounds) and be 1.7 to 2.8 meters (5.6 to 9.2 feet) in height, and can run for up to 70km/hour (43miles/hour) but they run at 50 km/hour (31 miles/hour) on average.
  • Ostriches are the largest bird species, have the largest eyes and lay the largest eggs of all non-extinct birds and land animals.

Ostrich, one, Single, Struthio Camelus, Maasai Mara Game, Kenya, Africa, savanna, Bird, Animal, Fluffy, Ten Random Facts, National Geographic Stock

Ostrich
Image courtesy of National Geographic
  • Depending on the season, ostriches can be found living in herds or flocks of 5 to 50, living in pairs or by themselves.
  • Ostriches eat plants or small land animals and insects, and can go without drinking water for long periods of time, because they absorb moisture from their food.
  • To escape predators an ostrich usually runs away or lies flat on the ground to blend into its surroundings, but if cornered or threatened the bird will deliver a powerful kick with it’s two toed, sharp clawed foot, which can kill a human or large animal like a lion, but it can only kick forwards.
  • Ostriches are  bred on farms for feathers, leather and meat, which tastes a bit like beef, and they can be ridden on, in a similar way to a horse.
  • All the female ostriches in one flock will usually lay their eggs in one nest, with the male and the dominant female taking it in turns to sit on them, although on average, less than 10% of the nests will survive to hatching, and only 15% of the hatched ostrich chicks will live to the age of one.
Bibliography:
Ostrich, 2013, National Geographic, <http://animals.nationalgeographic.com.au/animals/birds/ostrich/>
Ostrich, 2013, San Diego Zoo, < http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/ostrich>

Amazon:     

Human Lungs

By | |
Leave a comment
Human Lungs

Without lungs what would you be?

  • The lungs are a pair of organs that helps with breathing found in your thorax or chest, that sit side by side and are protected by your ribs.
  • The job of the lungs is to replace the carbon dioxide in our bloodstream with oxygen, by taking it from the air around us.
  • Although the lungs look identical, they are different as the right has three lobes and is a little larger than the left ,which only has two lobes.
  • Lungs are a spongy tissue which contract and expand, and a single lung is about 1.1kg (2.4 pounds) in weight.
  • Bronchi and bronchioles are tubular shaped branches that transport the air from the windpipe, or trachea, in the lungs, and if these ‘branches’, from both of the lungs, were placed side by side, the distance covered would reach approximately 2,400km (1,500 miles) in length.

Lungs, graphic, Two, Red, Pink, Trachea, Ten Random Facts, Free Digital Photos

Lungs
Image courtesy of Dream Designs/ Free Digital Photos
  • At the end of the bronchioles are groups of air sacs called alveoli, and humans have between 300 and 500 million of them in their lungs.
  • It is possible for people to live with only one lung, and whilst their function maybe a little limited due to the amount of air that can be inhaled and exhaled at any one time, they can generally lead a normal life.
  • It takes about 10 seconds for a newborn baby to inflate its lungs and take its first breath, and a typical human breathes 15 to 25 times a minute.
  • A common lung disease is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) with the main symptom being shortness of breath, which is most commonly caused by smoking, and can’t be cured but quitting smoking, healthy diets and cleaner air are some of the treatments.
  • Cancer, asthma, pneumonia, emphysema, bronchitis, apnea and lung poisoning are all common lung diseases or problems.
Bibliography:
Freudenrich C, How Your Lungs Work, 2013, How Stuff Works, < http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/human-biology/lung.htm>
Human Lung, 2013, Wikipedia, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_lung>
Lung Disease & Respiratory Health Center, 2013, WebMD, < http://www.webmd.com/lung/picture-of-the-lungs>

Amazon:     

Ink

By | |
Leave a comment
Ink

Black, red, blue and other ink.

  • Ink is typically a liquid or paste that is used to mark an object, typically paper or other writing or drawing surfaces.
  • Ink started being used around 2500 BC, most notably by the Chinese and Egyptians for writing purposes, and they used nearly the same formula.
  • Originally, ink was made from ash or soot, a liquid such as water or oil, and animal gelatin.
  • Ink is typically applied using a quill, brush or most commonly, a pen, however ink is also used in printing, with especially designed inks used for inkjet printers.
  • To prevent blurry edges and so that the ink would adhere to his newly invented printing press, Johannes Gutenberg invented a special oil-based ink in the 1400s.

 Ink, red, blue, black, lids, cover, inside, bottles, Ten Random Facts, Art Spectrum Brand, Artist's Pigmented, Drawing Ink Brand, Indian Black

  • Ink is often toxic if swallowed, depending on the material and pigments that the ink is made from, causing headaches, skin irritation and damage to one’s nervous system.
  • Inks often use up precious non-renewable oils and heavy metals, which both have a negative impact on the environment.
  • Inks come in different consistencies, such as thick or thin, watery or paste like, in powder or solid form, and in different colours, such as black, yellow, green, red or blue.
  • Inks are normally made from dyes, pigments or chemicals, and always consist of a colourant and a vehicle or binder which holds or suspends the colourant.
  • India Ink was first made in China, although some of the ingredients were usually sourced from India, and usually consisted of lampblack and animal glue and was formed into sticks that were then moistened for use.
Bibliography:
Bellis M, A Brief History of Writing Instruments, 2013, About.com, <http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa100197.htm>
Ink, 2013, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink>
A Short History of Ink, 2013, Stinky Ink, <http://www.stinkyinkshop.co.uk/blog/a-short-history-of-ink/>

Amazon:     

Thunderbirds

By | |
Leave a comment
Thunderbirds

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…. Thunderbirds Are Go!

  • Thunderbirds was a science fiction television series, that debuted in 1965 and ran until 1966 with 32 episodes produced over two series, running for 50 minutes per episode, which in some later reproductions became two 25-minute halves.
  • Thunderbirds is about the International Rescue team, or Thunderbirds, who have high technology of aircraft and other rescue equipment and is set in the future, originally 2026, which changed to 2065.
  • Thunderbirds was made in marionette puppet style, with some real life filming, with the puppets designed to be one third of a real person’s size and they had a lip sync mechanism which received electrical pulses to make the mouth move with the voice.
  • The main characters of Thunderbirds are the Tracy Brothers and their father Jeff Tracy, as well as Brains and Lady Penelope with her butler, Parker.
  • Thunderbirds was made in the United Kingdom and authorized by ITC Entertainment and produced by AP Films, who were experienced in the area of marionette puppetry.

Thunderbirds, Video, Cassette, Four, Movie, Film, Secruity Hazard, Thunderbirds 6, Puppets, Man from MI5, Ten Random Facts, International rescue

  • The idea for Thunderbirds came from the 1963 mining disaster in Germany, when miraculously nearly half of the trapped crew were saved.
  • The voices of Thunderbirds came from many nationalities, including American, Canadian, Australian and British actors and actresses.
  • Many materials were used for the special effects such as explosions in Thunderbirds, including petrol and fueled rocket canisters.
  • Thunderbirds is known for the rescue crafts Thunderbirds 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, which range from a large jet to a space station.
  • Three films have been adapted from the main series, ‘Thunderbirds Are Go! (1966)’, ‘Thunderbird 6’ (1968) and ‘Thunderbirds’, the most recent film released in 2004.
Bibliography:
The Background, n.d, Thunderbirds, < http://www.fab1.co.nz/thunderbirds.htm>
Thunderbirds (TV Series), 2013, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_(TV_series)>

Amazon:       

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...