Category Science

Where the horned viper lives?

The horned viper belongs to the reptile family. Dispersed throughout Yugoslavia and some regions of Austria these vipers can also be found in Italy on the eastern Alps. They are easily distinguishable from the usual vipera aspis and vipera berus by a horn, sometimes growing to a length of 5 centimetres, which sprouts out from the tip of the head. The horned viper prefers limestone or very stoney ground, and loves hot climates. It moves rather slowly, particularly during the day, when it sits lazily in the sun, digesting its captured prey which it swallows whole. But, if disturbed, the viper rears up emitting a hissing noise and sinking into the flesh of its enemy two poisonous fangs which are normally kept folded and hidden in a sac in its palate. In this respect, its behaviour is quite similar to that of the other European vipers.

 

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Who began flying?

Man has always longed to fly. In the late fifteenth century, Leonardo da Vinci was working on the problem of flying and a century later, a Jesuit priest from Brescia in northern Italy, suggested using the ascending force of the lightest gases present in the air. In 1782, the Neopolitan, Tibero Cavallo, filled a balloon with hydrogen and carried out some laboratory tests.

In France, a balloon full of hot air was publicly launched on 4 June 1783 at Annonay by the Montgolfier brothers, Etienne and Joseph. They repeated the experiment with a larger balloon at Versailles on 19 September 1783 when a hen, a sheep and a duck were the first living creatures to go up in a ‘Montgolfier balloon’. On 21 November the Marquis of Arlandes and Pilatre de Rozier, flew across from Paris, on board a hot air balloon.

The following month, December 1783, hydrogen was substituted for hot air. The physical J.H.C Charles with M.N Robert made the first manned flight using hydrogen.

 

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Where does the boar live?

Boars, the ancient forefathers of the domestic pig, have long been extinct in Britain but they still live in fairly large numbers in marshy, wooland areas in Spain, Austria, Russia and Germany. Some species can also be found in northern Africa and central and northern Asia.

Because of their great strength, speed and ferocity when at bay boars have always been hunted by man. In some parts of Europe and India they are still hunted, usually with the aid of dogs. They have not died out, however, mainly because they are prolific animals, the female producing between five and eight off spring at a time. Boars have sociable natures and live in flocks in dense, wooded areas. They feed on acorns, beechnuts, and chestnuts and occasionally small hard-shelled animals, worms, small birds or mice. They even eat serpents as they are immune to their poison.

In order to get rid of parasites, they wrap themselves in the mud.

 

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Where you can find the corkoak tree?

Cork, a material used mainly for bottle-stoppers, insulation and floor coverings, is produced from a special type of evergreen oak tree which grows, sometimes wild, in the coastal regions of the Mediterranean.

The cork-oak has a thick, dark foliage, formed from noded branches, covered with tough, oval leaves which are small and slightly jagged.

Its thick tall trunk is completely wrapped in an outer bark of cork which is covered with find brown grooves. The tree is first tripped of its cork, which will be rather hard and knobby, when it is about sixteen years old. It is then stripped again every nine to ten years, depending on its location, and each time it will produce a good, light cork just over three centimeters thick.

After about 150 years, these trees cease to produce good quality cork and they are then felled.

 

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Where nuclear power is used to generate electricity in Europe?

An important world record in the field of nuclear science is held by Britain, where the world’s first atomic power station was built in 1956 at Calder Hall.

Since then, the generation of electric power by atomic or nuclear reactors has become increasingly important in Europe, where over 10 percent of total generating capacity is now nuclear. This is a higher proportion than in any other continent.

The leading European nuclear country in terms of nuclear power stations is France, which generates about a third of its electricity from nuclear fuels. Then come Germany, Britain, Sweden, Finland, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and The Netherlands.

British nuclear power stations use a variety of different kinds of reactors, including an experimental fast breeder reactor at Dounreay. This is a kind of reactor that produces more fuel than it consumes and it could in theory generate immense amounts of power in the future.

However the technological problems involved have proved extremely difficult to solve and it is now doubtful whether the fast breeder will ever fulfil its early promise. Although nuclear power stations have to date worked well and safely throughout Europe, there is a mounting problem of radioactive waste disposal.                                                                                                                                                                                                          

 

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How you can find the land of the sunflower?

Sunflower with their round golden heads are grown in gardens where their beauty can be admired, and in field where they are planted for their seeds.

In Europe the largest habitat of the sunflower is in the Ukraine, where the black soil is rich in nutritive substances which are ideal for this type of cultivation.

Immense expanses of golden head, whose diameters sometimes reach 30 centimetres, and of stalks growing to a height of 4 metres, cover kilometre after kilometre of fertile plain, providing a spectacle which is at once vivid and imposing.

A native of North America, the sunflower leaves can be used as fodder for animals, the flowers provide a yellow dye and oil suitable for industrial use and for foodstuffs is extracted from its seeds. It is no coincidence and other oil producing plants are scarce.

 

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