DID YOU KNOW?

(Anecdotes from various sources.)
(11)

In 1830, Edwin Budding of Stroud, England, filed a patent for a new combination and application of machinery for the purpose of cropping or shearing the vegetable surface of lawns, grass plants and pleasure grounds - in other words, a lawn mower. Budding worked in the textile industry and had intended to produce a machine for finishing off or 'napping' heavy cloth. Handworkers in the industry, however, resisted the new machinery that, they felt, might threaten their employment. So Budding transformed his invention into an efficient grass cutter instead. Chain driven cylinders of cutting blades like Budding's are still found on many modern lawnmowers.

(10)

Only two flowering plants grow in Antarctica. One is a grass, the other a relative of the carnation.

(9)

Only 2.8% of the Earth's water is fresh, and of that small proportion only 6% is liquid - well over 90% is locked up in the polar ice caps, and the remainder is water vapour in the atmosphere. And about 98% of the Earth's liquid fresh water is underground.

(8)

The amount of water on Earth has remained the same since the planet was created some 4,600 million years ago.

(7)

If the reactions in the Sun's core were to be "switched off" today, it would be 10 million years before the solar surface started to cool - and before the Earth felt the effects.

(6)

There is no living thing that does not contain water. Plants need water to carry out photosynthesis and animals need water for digesting food, excreting waste, and in more complex species, circulating blood. A lettuce leaf is 94% water, a human being 60% - 70% and a pine tree is 55%.

(5)

The tallest tree alive today is believed to be a coast redwood growing in northern California. It stands 112m. (367ft.) high - taller than a 35 storey building. The record for the tallest tree ever goes to an Australian Eucalyptus, which reached 114m. (374ft.)

(4)

The Australian native mouse gathers water by making a pile of small pebbles outside it's burrow. The morning dew condenses on the pebbles, and the provident mouse finds it's daily supply of water delivered to it's doorstep like the morning milk.

(3)

Night blindness can be the result of a deficiency of vitamin A, which helps the photosensitive chemicals in the rods and cones of the retina. If such a deficiency occurs, the receptors become less sensitive, so vision is poor at night, when there is very little light to stimulate the rods. The most important source of vitamin is carotene and this was first chemically isolated from the carrot in1831. (So eat your carrots).

(2)

A sapling, no higher than a man, can draw up to 45 litres of water from the ground over 24 hours - enough to fill an average car's fuel tank.

(1)

Termites are not 'white ants'; their nearsest relative is the cockroach, not the ant.