A different mammal that excites you!

 

A mammal was introduced to me by its laughing voice! Hyena. It is a wolf-like animal that has high front legs and short hind legs. It has special teeth that can crush even bones of its prey! Apart from its laughing sound, it has many other sounds for communicating. It hunts in packs, often at night time (nocturnal). It can eat the carcasses of dead animals that are left out by the hunting animals. So, it is a scavenger of their forest territory in which they live in. It has an anal pouch that produces a white secretion with which it marks its territory on the grasses! Female hyenas are larger than the males in this kind of Spotted Hyenas (Crocuta crocuta, Kazhuthai puli in Tamil). Females dominate males. They have penis-shaped clitoris and a urogenital canal for copulating with male. Born cubs begin hunting in the first year of age itself! This hyena is said to be resistant to Rabies virus attack, as it has antibodies for that in its saliva! So a bite by an infected rabid animal cannot produce Rabies disease in it. There are many stories about this hyena – like taking away children sleeping on open grounds. This strange and different mammal, the Laughing Hyena, lives in a den that has many entrances on the ground, like that of mouse! 

Quite wonderful this second world - our Moon!

 

 Our Earth's Moon is ever enchanting both to humans and other living things, the animals and plants present on this Earth. Though this natural satellite of our planet is revolving around, it is said to be formed out of Earth either due to some forcible impact by asteroids or by parting away due to Earth's centrifugal force when it was rotating. It is still a wonder how the moon keeps it's same side towards the Earth in all it's rotation about itself during its revolving around the Earth in it's orbit!

Wonderfully exciting - Piezoelectricity!

In 1960s, I listened to Gramophone machine with wonder, how it worked, as its arm danced on a grooved disc that rotated round and round! When the operator of this machine (player) lifted up its arm in changing the disc, I noted a needle under it. I had been wondering about it till I studied Physics at college. Yes, that needle (stylus) produced electrical signals as it went up and down the grooves of the disc, (called as record). It did it through a crystal mounted inside the arm's head (called as pickup). This stylus and the pickup did the whole magic in the gramophone record player - producing Piezoelectricity!

A striking force or pressure on a material such as a quartz crystal, can produce this piezoelectricity. This electricity was found out by French Physicists, Pierre Curie and Jacques Curie in 1880. This piezoelectricity is also used in Inkjet printing, in SONAR and Radio Telephony. Earlier, I knew well about some devices that produced sparks - cigarette lighter and the gas stove lighter. Now, I know that they use this piezo effect in them! Do you know that piezo effect is also used in watches and radio wave transmission?

The reverse of this piezo effect has been also discovered to work for us! It produces Ultra Sound waves when an electric curent is applied on to a crystal!

I am going on learning and learning about new uses of piezo effect: it is used in cars for echolocation of objects! 

So, it is a wonder-full Piezoelectricity that is also exhibited by cane sugar crystals, ceramics and even by our bones!

Terrorizing wonder - Mirror!

We see others in front of us. Can others see themselves as we see them in front of us? Yes, they can see themselves with a mirror held in front of them! When a baby sees first its own face in a mirror, it will be some another person or an object; but later, it understands, learns and identifies it as its own image! 

Sweeter but a sticky fruit, Lasura!

In my childhood days, I had wondered about a nut that remained stuck on the eaves tiles. How had it gone there? Crow had swallowed it and ejected it in its droppings on to the tiles! Is it not digested? It is a hardy nut and hence it is not digested! What is the name of the fruit that contained this nut and was tasty to the crow?

An insect and a worm from nowhere!

I had then found an insect walking out of a cut mango in my boyhood days. The mango seed was having a hole on it; from that hole black and soft grains had come out and spilled on the mango slices and lay strewn all around too. When the insect was touched with a stick, it folded in its legs and pretended to be dead lying still! After sometime it put out its legs and moved away hurriedly! How and when this insect could have entered inside the mango and how could it survive inside the mango? These were the questions arising in me.. Likewise, I had also wondered how worms could have entered in our body and make their living inside us!

Deliciously attracting fruit - the Custard Apple!

Fruits that are available seasonally are the most desired than those available year round. One of such most desired fruits is the Custard Apple (Sugar Apple, Annona squamosa, 'Seethapazham' in Tamil)!

The ultimate nutrition supplier to the body cells - Capillaries!

Small is not only beautiful but also essential to life! We take food to supply nutrition to our body.  How and from where this nutrition is received by the tissue cells of our body? Do you know? We all know that our heart pumps blood from the body organs to the lungs, and then returns the purified blood back to the body organs. But there is also a microcirculation existing at a microlevel between arteries, arterioles and the venules, veins! The components of this circulation are the Capillaries. Only through the walls of these capillaries, the nutrition is received by the tissue cells!

Depicable? No; useful and beautiful - the Caterpillar!

Tiny creatures moving differently often attracted me in my childhood. Unlike the insects' movements, they creep on the ground and move slowly, and don't fly at all. One of them is Caterpillar (Larva, 'Puzhu' in Tamil). These caterpillars are different from worms; they are only the intermediary forms in the development of insects from eggs to the adult forms, the insects.

Pleasing caller - the White-browed Wagtail!

When I was living in an apartment house, I watched two small birds frequenting the top floor of the next house. They were of large sparrow-size, moving their tails up and down. I had seen such birds sitting on the overhead tanks of buildings; they sing for a few seconds and fly away. But I found these two birds to remain on the house for days together!

Sriking fragrance is here - from Marukkozhunthu!

Fragrance on the air makes you expect some flowers near you. But there is a leaf instead of a flower doing this fragrant job! In my childhood days I identified this leaf in a garland made for the Gods' worshiping. A few of these leaves were seen tied alternating with flowers.

The sky's excellence - Supermoon!

Moon is the cool satellite for our Earth and its occupants. It influences the Earth's sea water, materials and also the minds of all the living creatures in it. It is needless to think further about the effect of the visible full moon. Now, this full moon is super in its size - Supermoon!

Flying green dot - the Firefly!

With my parents we went to Courtallam, the 'Spa of South India' quite often. We were on one such visit to this place of waterfalls in 1960s. At night, I was then shown a green dot of light that flashed on a bush by my elder sisters. In the dark I searched for it and found it.

Camphor, that lights up bright God's face!

A white round sweet-like substance that smells pleasant and strong to the nose shall attract definitely any child towards it. When it is lighted up, its flame also attracts the child to touch it - but its heat makes the child to retract its hand back! It is our Camphor ('Karpooram' or 'Soodum' in Tamil).

Switching on life with the Pacemaker!

Recently there was news about an Indian-origin doctor implanting  inside heart directly a miniature pacemaker, that is leadless - that too without surgery! Pacemaker is a device that stimulates heart when it fails to beat! Without heart's functioning, there is no life at all; so, this life providing device is much more important than anything else. 

The artist of the soil, the Earthworm!

I had wondered in my childhood about the straight lines found on the muddy soil: it was raining the previous evening; who would have drawn them overnight! As I grew up, I understood who it is: the lines were drawn by worms, the Earthworms! (term and names: Lumbricus terrestris, Rain worm, Night-crawler, Angleworm, 'Munpulu' in Tamil). Though these brownish worms are found in rainy season, their presence in summer can also be inferred by the mud-disrupted lines on the irrigated farm grounds.

Arrow of the sky, the Asian Palm Swift!

At evenings, whenever I walked on the outskirts of my hometown, I used to see small birds flying on the sky in darts here and there. I had wondered in my school days whether they are insects, bats or birds. These arrow like flying things are only birds known as Asian Palm Swifts (Cypsiurus balasiensis, 'Panaimara ulavaran' in Tamil).

A pet to man but enemy to snake - the Mongoose!

In my school days, I have heard my elders tell stories about mongoose apart from that popular story, 'Riki-Tikki-Tavi.' One of such stories is here: the mongoose stole daily a hen from the hen house and left out the hen's body after eating its brain! It simply entered into the hen house burrowing down the earth next to the fence!

The hero of the night's sky - the Moon!

Mothers introduce our Moon to their children in their infancy itself: as they feed them each day with the dinner food, they point out at the serene moon. In the night's sky the moon is the sole attracting object than anything else. Each night it presents a new shape of its phases, that too at different times! It plays such for the kids, attracting them towards it :)

Grey bug of moisture - the Woodlouse!

Whenever I get some itchy skin rashes, my mother attributed it to the bite of a bug. Wondering about what it could be, I searched for it near me; but could not find one. One day my mother pointed out to that bug: it was greyish on its back and whitish underneath; its body was segmented; it was about 6mm in length.