by Bill McLain
An 1873 issue of Scientific American stated, “A shower of frogs, which darkened the air and covered the ground for a long distance, is the reported result of a recent rainstorm in Kansas City, Missouri.”
In 1995 a tornado swept through a midwestern bottling plant and dropped soda cans 150 miles north of the plant. One witness said, “Soda cans were falling from the sky just like raining frogs.”
FACTOIDS
The golden dart frog is so poisonous that the skin of a single frog can kill up to 1,000 people.
The largest frog in the world is the Goliath from West Africa. They can grow to be one foot long. The smallest frogs in the world are less than a half inch long when fully grown.
The bones of frogs grow a new ring every year. Scientists can count the rings to tell the frog’s age in the same way they count tree rings to determine a tree’s age.
A frog and a toad are not the same. A frog is moist, slimy, and jumps, while a toad is dry, warty, and walks on all fours.
Many frogs can jump up to 20 times their body length. That’s the same as if a 6-foot man could jump 120 feet in a single leap.
Frogs never drink. They absorb water from their surroundings by osmosis.
When describing a group of creatures, we say “a school of fish,” “a flock of seagulls,” or “a herd of cattle.” A group of frogs is called “an army of frogs,” while a group of toads is called “a knot of toads.”
Frogs live between 4 and 15 years, but one European common toad lived to be 40 years old.
DID YOU KNOW?
There are over 2,500 species of frogs and toads in the world and some scientists spend their lives studying nothing but frogs.
Not only scientists are interested in frogs. The croaking creatures made their way into literature thousands of years ago. The Greek playwright Aristophanes wrote a play entitled The Frogs. Native Americans have a myth called “Why Frogs Croak” and the Brothers Grimm wrote The Frog Prince and The Toad Princess. More recent is The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame with its famous Toad Hall, which was the inspiration for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland. Mark Twain’s century-old story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” is not only still popular today but remembered in the annual frog jumping competition in the town of Calaveras, California.
Perhaps a fable from Aesop is the best way to end this.
A donkey carrying a heavy load of wood was fording a pond when he lost his footing and fell into the water. Because of the heavy load, he could not get up and began groaning and sighing. A nearby frog said, “Why are you making such a fuss about a mere fall into the water? What would you do if you had to live here forever as we do?”
The moral, according to Aesop: “Men often bear small grievances with much less courage than they do large misfortunes.”
More questions? Try these websites.
EXCELLENT WEATHER SITE
http://cirrus.sprl.umich.edu/wxnet/
Here you can look up current national temperatures, satellite and Doppler radar photos of your state, a 24-hour forecast for your state, storm warnings, hurricane warnings, rainfall totals, earthquake activity, and other information. It also includes links to other weather sites. Be sure to scroll because it’s a long page.
WEATHER ANYWHERE IN THE COUNTRY
http://www.wunderground.com/
Just click on any state on the map to see a list of major cities within the state and the current weather.
SEE A PICTURE OF THE LOCAL WEATHER
http://cirrus.sprl.umich.edu/wxnet/wxcam.html
Simply click on a city and state to see a photograph of the current weather.
WEATHER MAPS
http://nimbo.wrh.noaa.gov/sandiego/maps.html
This page has a list of weather maps you can select.
WEATHER MAP SYMBOLS
http://www.water.ca.gov/gifs/weather.map.symbols.gif
This page explains what all those strange symbols on a weather map mean.
World
What is the oldest living thing in the world? (Animal, vegetable, or…)
Up until the late 1970s, the oldest living thing was thought to be 5,000-year-old bristlecone pines high in the White Mountains of California and the Snake Range of eastern Nevada. However, it’s now accepted that a flowering shrub called a creosote bush in California’s Mojave Desert is nearly 12,000 years old.
One particular bush, named “King Clone,” started from a seed. During its lifetime the last major glacial period in North America ended, the great Egyptian and Mayan pyramids were built, and the first human walked on the moon. This lonely shrub lived through it all and is still flourishing today.
An interesting attribute of the creosote plant is that it fragments as it ages and produces daughter plants that are clones of the parent. The clones form rings that expand in diameter at the rate of about one meter per 500 years.
The shrub has an interesting circular growth pattern. Each giant ring of shrubs comes from one ancestral shrub that once grew in the center of the ring. Over thousands of years, the center wood dies and rots away, leaving a barren area surrounded by a ring of shrubs. One of the oldest shrub rings is 50 feet in diameter.
FACTOIDS
When the leaves of the creosote bush fall to the ground, they poison the soil so no other plants can grow around the plant.
The creosote bush can survive up to two years without rain. Its leaves are coated with a varnish-like resin that reduces water loss by evaporation.
Leaves of the creosote bush are especially pungent after a rain, and the smell of creosote fills the desert. The bush is often called hediondilla, Spanish for “little stinker.”
The versatile creosote bush served native peoples well:
The leaves were used as antiseptics and emetics.
The vapors of boiling leaves, when inhaled, cured respiratory problems.
Lard was mixed with the leaves to form a lotion to treat saddle sores.
Crushed leaves were used as a deodorant and disinfectant.
The resin on its branches was used as a glue to mend broken pottery and cement arrowheads.
DID YOU KNOW?
Other living wonders of our world:
Oldest living fossil: The maidenhair tree (Ginkgo bilobd) still lives on the earth today but abundant fossil imprints of this tree’s leaves have been found in sedimentary rocks 135 to 210 million years old, dating from when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Largest living thing: A giant sequoia tree named “General Sherman” is 272 feet tall with a gigantic trunk 35 feet in diameter and 109 feet in circumference at the base. It contains enough timber to build 120 average-size houses.
Tallest tree: Another giant sequoia holds the record for the tallest tree. It is 367 feet tall, 62 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.
Heaviest and lightest wood: The South African black iron-wood tree has the heaviest wood, while the tropical American balsawood tree has the lightest wood.
Smallest fruit: The wolffia plant produces the smallest fruit. Each one-seeded fruit is about the size of a single grain of ordinary table salt. The wolffia is a tiny water plant.
Largest fruit: Records change annually, but currently a 1,061-pound pumpkin holds the title.
Smallest seed: Certain rain forest orchids produce seeds weighing only 35 millionths of an ounce, which are dispersed into the air like minute dust particles.
Largest seed: The coco-de-mer palm tree has seeds up to 12 inches long, almost 3 feet in circumference, and weighing up to 40 pounds.
What is the tallest clock in the world? (Take your time with this one.)
The tallest and most visible clock in the world is Big Ben in London, England, which is 320 feet high. A close second is the Campanile in Venice, Italy, which is 315 feet high, and the third tallest is the Sather Tower at the University of California at Berkeley, which is 307 feet high.
Big Ben, which is in a tower at the east end of the Houses of Parliament, is noted for its accuracy and for
its bell, which weighs 13 tons. When it was installed in 1859, the bell was named after the commissioner of works at the time, Sir Benjamin Hall. Eventually, the name Big Ben became synonymous with the clock rather than the bell.
The majestic Campanile in Venice was originally built as a military watchtower and lighthouse, and eventually rose to a height of 300 feet. Without warning, it collapsed in 1902. It was rebuilt to its present height in 1912. Visitors to this massive brick tower have a breathtaking view of the waterways and rooftops of Venice.
The Sather Tower at the University of California at Berkeley was patterned after the Venice Campanile. The clock faces are 17 feet in diameter and the largest in the state. The numerals are cast bronze and the hands are Sitka spruce. The clock is run by a 40-volt battery that is 20 feet long.
FACTOIDS
Big Ben has four faces, or dials, each facing in a different direction and each having 365 panes of glass, one for every day of the year. Each dial is 23 feet in diameter, the numbers are almost 2 feet high, and the minute hands are 14 feet long.
The 61 bells in the Sather Tower range in weight from 349 pounds to almost 12,000 pounds. Together, they comprise five chromatic octaves. Although the Sather Tower bells are normally played every day, they remain silent during final examinations.
After the collapse of the original Venice Campanile, the rebuilt tower was christened on April 25, 1912, exactly 1,000 years after the original structure was begun.
The original Campanile in Venice was built in the tenth century and its roof was sheathed with bronze. During the day it reflected the sun’s rays and served as a beacon for sailors.
It is said that the ghost of a disgruntled student has haunted the Sather Tower since the 1930s. A legend says that students can call on the ghost for help during finals because it still holds a grudge against the university.
A light on the top of the tower housing Big Ben is lit whenever the House of Commons is in session.
DID YOU KNOW?
Although we admire clock towers today, they were often built for reasons having nothing to do with appearance. In fact the word “campanile” means “bell tower” because bell ringing was one of the early uses for these towers.
The Venice Campanile was originally built as a military watchtower for the nearby dock. It also functioned as a lighthouse. The tower had five bells, each with a different message. The loudest bell announced the beginning of the workday, one rang the hours of the day, one called senators to the palace, one summoned judges, and the smallest bell announced the executions of prisoners held within the tower walls. This last bell was called il Maleficio, or “the evil one.”
The Campanile has had many famous visitors, including Galileo, Goethe, and Emperor Frederick III of the Holy Roman Empire, who rode his horse up the tower. Today’s visitors to the tower do not have to contend with horses. They ride a modern elevator that whisks them up to the tower’s viewing platform.
When the Panama Canal was built, was it just cut through the land or did they have to build a concrete bottom and sides? (A revolutionary idea.)
The builders of the Panama Canal just cut through the land. They did not build a concrete bottom or sides. However, they did build dams to create lakes and used concrete to construct the locks.
King Charles I of Spain had proposed a canal route through the Isthmus of Panama in 1534 but nothing came of it. Then in 1881, Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had supervised the excavation of the Suez Canal, formed a company that started cutting a sea-level channel through the Isthmus of Panama. The company collapsed in 1889 because of bad planning, accusations of fraud, and most of all, disease.
Before the United States could build a canal in Panama, it had to receive permission from the Panamanian government. President Theodore Roosevelt was instrumental in inciting a successful Panamanian revolution. The revolutionary leaders had promised to give the United States control of the canal zone if the revolution succeeded.
In the past, the main obstacle to building the canal had been the prevalence of yellow fever. Americans Walter Reed and William Gorgas realized the relationship between mosquitoes and yellow fever and started a campaign to destroy the mosquitoes. As a result, they conquered the affliction of yellow fever and reduced the death rate by almost 97 percent.
In 1907 President Theodore Roosevelt selected George Goethals as the chief engineer of the canal project. The obstacles facing Goethals were not only the formidable physical tasks of completing such a large endeavor, but also housing and feeding over 30,000 workers. Seven years later the first ship passed through the canal and President Woodrow Wilson appointed George Goethals as the first governor of the Canal Zone.
FACTOIDS
The largest ship that can pass through the canal cannot be more than 965 feet long and 106 feet wide, and cannot draw more than 39½ feet of water. Larger ships cannot pass through the locks.
Over 5,600 men died while building the Panama Canal. Today it takes 8,000 workers to run and maintain the canal.
In 1979 control of the Panama Canal passed from the United States to a joint agency of the United States and Panama. On January 1, 2000, Panama will have complete and independent control of the canal.
A palindrome is a word or sentence that reads the same forward or backward. The following summary of the Panama Canal is a palindrome: “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!” It reads the same in either direction.
The canal locks raise and lower ships a total of 85 feet.
It takes a ship an average of 33 hours to travel the length of the canal but it can cut thousands of nautical miles off the routes ships had to take before the canal was built.
DID YOU KNOW?
The Panama Canal is just one of the world’s famous canals. The Suez Canal, which links the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, is the world’s largest and is just over 100 miles long. Over 120,000 workers died during its construction. There are also the famous canals of Venice, Italy, and those in the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Not many people know that ancient China’s Grand Canal was 1,107 miles long. Started in 540 B.C., it took over 1,800 years to complete. The canal linked the city of Hangchou in Chekiang province to Peking.
A lesser known but fascinating canal system was the one built in Venice, California, in the early part of this century. Gondolas moved slowly past stately homes as they glided quietly along the two-mile canal system.
However, in the late 1920s the “Age of Progress” began and the growing city needed more roads. Officials decided to fill in the canals. As the first loads of dirt were dumped into a drained canal, hundreds of angry citizens jumped in and started shoveling the dirt out as fast as it was coming in, but to no avail. By the end of 1929 all of the canals had been filled in and paved over with asphalt.
Perhaps there is some kind of lesson here. Is it possible for ordinary citizens to shovel back the tide of technical progress or must they surrender to its inevitable onslaught?
What are the seven natural wonders of the world? (Will wonders never cease?)
There are many sources that list the seven natural wonders of the world and each list is different. However, the wonders that occur on most of these lists are:
The Grand Canyon (Arizona)
Yosemite Valley (California)
Mount Everest (Nepal)
Nile River (North Africa)
Niagara Falls (United States/Canada)
Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe, Africa)
Harbor of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
Four other likely candidates are:
Great Barrier Reef (Australia)
Caves in France and Spain
Paricutin (volcano in Mexico)
Rainbow Bridge National Monument (Utah)
When the Empire State Building was completed in 1931, a new list called the “Seven Wonders of the Modern World” included:
Pyramids (Egypt)
Leaning tower of Pisa (Italy)
Church of Hagia Sophia (Turkey)
&
nbsp; Taj Mahal (India)
Washington Monument (Washington, D.C.)
Eiffel Tower (France)
Empire State Building (New York)
Among the many “wonders of the world” lists is a compilation of the world’s wonders that the United Nations plans to protect and preserve. Qualifying sites must have outstanding global value and be either a “natural” wonder, such as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, or a “cultural” wonder, such as the Chartres Cathedral in France. The Statue of Liberty is one of the hundreds of sites listed.
FACTOIDS
The Tibetan and Nepali names for Mount Everest both mean “Goddess Mother of the World.”
From 1921 to 1952 there were 10 attempts to reach the summit of Mount Everest. They all failed. Finally, in 1953 Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal reached the summit.
The tightrope walker Blondin crossed the 1,100-foot span across Niagara Falls on a tightrope 160 feet above the water. He did this a number of times: blindfolded, in a sack, pushing a wheelbarrow, on stilts, and carrying a man on his back (we don’t know the name of his fearless passenger).
