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Oxygen And Rainforests

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It used to be thought that the rainforests produced a lot of the Earth’s oxygen but this view has now changed.

Rainforests are forests characterized by high and continuous rainfall, with annual rainfall in the case of tropical rainforests between 2.5 and 4.5 metres (98 and 177 in), and definitions varying by region for temperate rainforests. The monsoon trough, alternatively known as the intertropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating the climatic conditions necessary for the Earth’s tropical rainforests: which are distinct from monsoonal areas of seasonal tropical forest.

Estimates vary from 40% to 75% of all biotic species are indigenous to the rainforests. There may be many millions of species of plants, insects and microorganisms still undiscovered in tropical rainforests. Tropical rainforests have been called the “jewels of the Earth” and the “world’s largest pharmacy”, because over one quarter of natural medicines have been discovered there. Rainforests are also responsible for 28% of the world’s oxygen turnover, sometimes misnamed oxygen production, processing it through photosynthesis from carbon dioxide and consuming it through respiration.

The undergrowth in some areas of a rainforest can be restricted by poor penetration of sunlight to ground level. If the leaf canopy is destroyed or thinned, the ground beneath is soon colonized by a dense, tangled growth of vines, shrubs and small trees, called a jungle. The term jungle is also sometimes applied to tropical rainforests generally.

Rainforests as well as endemic rainforest species are rapidly disappearing due to deforestation, the resulting habitat loss and pollution of the atmosphere.
Curated from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainforest

Babies Have More Bones Than Adults

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Of course, the exact number depends on how you are counting.

The human skeleton consists of both fused and individual bones supported and supplemented by ligaments, tendons, muscles and cartilage. It serves as a scaffold which supports organs, anchors muscles, and protects organs such as the brain, lungs, heart and spinal cord. Although the teeth do not consist of tissue commonly found in bones, the teeth are usually considered as members of the skeletal system. The biggest bone in the body is the femur in the upper leg, and the smallest is the stapes bone in the middle ear. In an adult, the skeleton comprises around 14% of the total body weight, and half of this weight is water.

Fused bones include those of the pelvis and the cranium. Not all bones are interconnected directly: There are three bones in each middle ear called the ossicles that articulate only with each other. The hyoid bone, which is located in the neck and serves as the point of attachment for the tongue, does not articulate with any other bones in the body, being supported by muscles and ligaments.

There are 206 bones in the adult human skeleton, although this number depends on whether the pelvic bones (the hip bones on each side) are counted as one or three bones on each side (ilium, ischium, and pubis), whether the coccyx or tail bone is counted as one or four separate bones, and does not count the variable wormian bones between skull sutures. Similarly, the sacrum is usually counted as a single bone, rather than five fused vertebrae. There is also a variable number of small sesamoid bones, commonly found in tendons. The patella or kneecap on each side is an example of a larger sesamoid bone. The patellae are counted in the total, as they are constant. The number of bones varies between individuals and with age – newborn babies have over 270 bones some of which fuse together. These bones are organized into a longitudinal axis, the axial skeleton, to which the appendicular skeleton is attached.

The human skeleton takes 20 years before it is fully developed.

Curated from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeleton#Humans

Eiffel Tower Grows

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Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to change its shape, area, and volume in response to a change in temperature.

Temperature is a monotonic function of the average molecular kinetic energy of a substance. When a substance is heated, the kinetic energy of its molecules increases. Thus, the molecules begin vibrating/moving more and usually maintain a greater average separation.

Unlike gases or liquids, solid materials tend to keep their shape when undergoing thermal expansion. The coefficient of thermal expansion describes how the size of an object changes with a change in temperature. Specifically, it measures the fractional change in size per degree change in temperature at a constant pressure.

 

When calculating thermal expansion it is necessary to consider whether the body is free to expand or is constrained. If the body is free to expand, the expansion or strain resulting from an increase in temperature can be simply calculated by using the applicable coefficient of Thermal Expansion.

Heat-induced expansion has to be taken into account in most areas of engineering. A few examples are:

Metal-framed windows need rubber spacers.
Rubber tires need to perform well over a range of temperatures, being passively heated or cooled by road surfaces and weather, and actively heated by mechanical flexing and friction.
Metal hot water heating pipes should not be used in long straight lengths.
Large structures such as railways and bridges need expansion joints in the structures to avoid sun kink.
One of the reasons for the poor performance of cold car engines is that parts have inefficiently large spacings until the normal operating temperature is achieved.
A gridiron pendulum uses an arrangement of different metals to maintain a more temperature stable pendulum length.
A power line on a hot day is droopy, but on a cold day it is tight. This is because the metals expand under heat.
Expansion joints absorb the thermal expansion in a piping system.

Curated from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_expansion

 

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