My Science School

Giraffes are the world's tallest animals with legs as long as 1.8 metres. They not only have long legs, but also have long necks that they use to reach leaves and buds on treetops, which no other animal can reach. They have very long tongues as well, which can be as long as 53.34 centimetres.

Living in the African savannah, they move at a speed of 16 kilometres per hour to cover long distances and can run as fast as 56 kilometres per hour in short distances. Although their massive height becomes advantageous while looking out for predators, it also becomes a difficulty while they drink from water holes. With their towering legs, the only way to drink water from these water holes is to bend down in a weird position that makes them vulnerable to attack. The wild cats of Africa are the most common predators of the giraffes.

Their favourite food is Acacia leaves. Like the cows, they regurgitate their food and chew it as cud. Their diet also keeps them hydrated, as the leaves have a lot of water content in them and helps them to avoid going to the water holes frequently. They also travel really long distances to find their meal as they consume about a hundred pounds of leaves every week, which is a big volume of plant matter to be found in one area.

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Located on the Tibetan Plateau, the Tanggula railway station is one of the loneliest railway stations in the world. It is part of the Qingzang Railway, but is an unstaffed railway station located at 5068 metres above sea level, making it the highest railway station in the world. This station is 1.25 kilometres long and covers 77,002 square metres with 3 rail tracks.

Along with the Golmud to Lhasa section of the Qingzang Railway, the Tanggula railway station was also inaugurated on July 1, 2006. The trains stop here very briefly, and most often, passengers just remain on the train. Tanggula usually serves as a stop-off for repairs or emergencies, but the view from the station (or from the train as it stops or passes by) is very impressive. The region near the railway station is mostly uninhabited, and very few passengers get off at this station. A few kilometres from this station is the Tanggula Pass, which is 5071.9 metres above sea level, making it the highest point of the Qingzang Railway.

The Qingzang Railway was rewarded with a handful of world records. It was recognized as being the highest railway in the world, with the world’s highest railway tunnel (the Fenghuoshan Tunnel) and the world’s highest railway station.

Siachen Glacier is the world's highest battlefield at an elevation of 5416 metres above sea level. At Siachen, the temperature is always freezing, and can even drop to temperatures as low as minus 60 degrees Celsius. Apart from the freezing weather, the oxygen level here is as low as 10 per cent of what we have on the grasslands.

Existing as a barrier between the Shaksgam Valley and Baltistan, it holds a significant importance for India by preventing the link-up of the Pakistani army with the Chinese army, thus protecting Ladakh - the Shaksgam valley is under the control of China and Baltistan is occupied by Pakistan. With about 3000 soldiers on duty every day, India spends around 5 to 7 crores daily to guard the glacier. Every soldier who gets to guard the glacier, serves only for about three months, as the harsh weather conditions make it very difficult to survive for longer periods.

Since the Indian army took control of Siachen in 1984, more than 1000 soldiers have died here. This number is almost twice the number of men who lost their lives in the Kargil war! A war memorial with the names of all the Indian soldiers who lost their lives for their country can be seen at the Siachen Base Camp of the Indian Army.

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Located in the Guiana Highlands in Bolivar state of southeastern Venezuela, the Angel Falls is the world's highest uninterrupted waterfall. It occurs on the Churun River, which is a tributary of the Caron, located 260 kilometres to the southeast of Ciudad Bolivar. This cataract drops 979 metres and is 150 metres wide at the base.

Angel Falls was not known to the outside world until 16th November, 1933 when Jimmie Angel, an American aviator, flew over them while he was searching for an ore bed, based on the directions given by the Spanish explorer Felix Cardona.

Once he located the falls, he returned on 9th October, 1937 to land his Flamingo monoplane El Rio Caroni on top of Auyantepui, a tabletop mountain. But his plane was damaged when its wheels sank into the marshy ground, leaving Angel and his three companions, including his wife Marie, stranded. They were forced to climb down the tepui, which took them 11 days. The news of this adventure spread across the world and the waterfall was named Angel Falls in his honour.

Since it is located in the Canaima National Park, the dense jungle surrounding it prevents it from being seen from the air. Angel Falls is one of Venezuela's top tourist attractions, and its other name, "Salto del angel" was first published on a Venezuelan government map in December 1939.

 

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Owing to its elevation, the Tibetan Plateau is known as the Roof of the World (Bam-i- Duniah). This region of Asia is known as High Asia, with an average elevation of 4511 metres above sea level, making the Tibetan Plateau the world's highest plateau.

It was formed and is still being formed due to the collision of the Indo-Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates- these plates started colliding about 70 million years ago! The Tibetan Plateau has a number of saline and freshwater glacial lakes, that is, there are about 1,500 large and small lakes with a total area of 24,183 square kilometres as on 2008.

It is also called the Third Pole due to its ice fields, which are the world's greatest freshwater resource other than the Polar Regions. This region gives rise to some of the most important rivers of Asia including the Brahmaputra, Indus, Ganges, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze, and Yellow river.

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Lake Titicaca is located at 3,810 metres above sea level in the Andes Mountains of South America along the border of Peru and Bolivia to the west and the east, respectively. It is the world's highest lake navigable by large vessels. By volume of water, Lake Titicaca is the largest lake of South America.

Over 25 rivers end up in Titicaca, of which the largest is the Ramis River, which occupies about two-fifths of the entire Titicaca Basin. It enters the north-western corner of the lake. Another small river, the Desaguadero, merges with the lake at its southern end.

Before the arrival of the Incas many other cultures lived on the lake. A team of international archaeologists and divers excavated the ruins of an underwater temple in the year 2000. It is thought to be between 1,000 and 1,500 years old, most likely built by the Tiwanaku people. The ruins have been measured to be 200 by 50 metres. There was a village along with the temple and it had some roads, terraces for farming and a retaining wall, which was 800 metres.

Although the meaning of the name Titicaca is uncertain, it has been translated as Rock of the Puma or Crag of Lead.

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La Paz is the world’s highest national capital. It is the administrative capital of Bolivia, which lies between 3,250 and 4,100 metres above sea level. The city centre is located in a deep, broad canyon that was formed by the Choqueyapu River.

Founded in 1548, it was first named Nuestra Senora de La Paz (Our Lady of Peace) by the conquistador Captain Alonso de Mendoza on the site of an Inca village. It was later renamed as La Paz de Ayacucho in 1825. In 1898, it was set as the seat of the national government but Sucre is still Bolivia's constitutional capital, where the country's Supreme Court is located while La Paz is home to the executive and legislative centres.

The city is popular for its cultural assets with places like The National Museum of Art, a children's museum, the Museum of Ethnography and Folklore, the National Museum of Archaeology, and the Mercado de Brujas (Witches Market), where herbs and other remedies that are used by the local Aymara people are sold. In 1998, the city faced an earthquake which killed hundreds of residents and destroyed many buildings. Santa Cruz overtook La Paz in the wake of the 21st century as Bolivia's most populous city but before that La Paz held that status for many years.

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Mount Everest, located in the Himalayas, is the highest mountain above sea level. The China-Nepal border is across its summit point. In 2020, the Chinese and Nepali authorities marked its elevation as 8,848.86 m. Mount Everest is highly revered by local people like most other mountains in the range and is known as Chomolungma in Tibetan. It means Goddess Mother of the World or Goddess of the Valley. It was identified as the highest point on the Earth's surface in 1852, when the governmental Survey of India established this fact. It was previously named Peak XV but was renamed in 1865 to honour Sir George Everest, the British surveyor general of India from 1830 to 1843.

British mountaineers made the first recorded efforts to reach Everest’s summit. Nepal did not allow foreigners to enter the country at that time, so the British made several attempts from the Tibetan side. The first expedition by the British in 1921 reached 7,000 metres on the North Col, a pass connecting Mount Everest and Changste, a mountain in Tibet. Another expedition in 1922 reached up to 8,320 metres, making it the first instance of a human being's climb above 8,000 metres. Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reached the summit of the world’s highest mountain on May 28, 1953 at 11:30 am local time.

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With a coastline that stretches for 2,02,080 kilometres along the Pacific Ocean in the west, the Atlantic Ocean in the east, and the Arctic Ocean in the north, Canada has the longest coastline in the world. Due to its extensive coastline that borders different oceans, Canada's landscape along the shoreline varies significantly at different locations.

Canada shares its southern and western border with the United States for over 8,891 kilometres. It has the world's longest binational land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa; it also has three other large metropolitan areas: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

Canada has some of the most pristine landscapes in the world and about 80 per cent of this beautiful country is uninhabited. Animals such as the moose, polar bears, and wood bison are found here in large numbers. It also has many important ports for trading and provide access to some of the best fishing areas in the world. The vast coastline of the country is a central component in Canada’s economy.

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The longest road tunnel in the world, the Laerdal Tunnel is situated in Norway. With a road length of 24.51-kilometres the tunnel connects Laerdal and Aurland, two municipalities in the country. The tunnel also provides a ferry-free connection between Oslo and Bergen.

The construction of this tunnel started in 1995 and it was opened in 2000. It cost a total of 1.082 billion Norwegian krone. A great deal of investment was made for ensuring the safety of the passengers. This is the first tunnel in the world to be equipped with an air treatment plant.

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The longest species of seaweed is the giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera. It is found near the Californian shore and in different parts of the world near the Pacific Ocean. The longest specimen that has been verified is 60 metres long but unofficial reports say that even longer specimens have been found.

They form large and dense kelp forests, which become habitats for a number of different marine species. They are often located in cold and clear waters, where they resemble tall grass although they are not part of the grass family. It is a type of brown alga and belongs to the large kingdom of Protista. Since kelp is not a plant, it does not have roots and obtains its nutrients from a structure called a holdfast by which it attaches itself to the rocky bottom of the ocean. But kelp are similar to plants by the fact that they use photosynthesis to harvest the Sun's energy and do not feed on other organisms to keep themselves alive. They are also one of the fastest growing species and are known to grow up to 60 centimetres in a single day when given perfect conditions. Strikingly, when the kelp reaches the sea surface, it grows horizontally and floats as large mats that shade the water column and the sea floor below it.

The kelps also become a source of nutrition once they decompose in the sea bed. Sea otters even use these giant kelps to avoid being floated away while they sleep.

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Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg ("The Master-Singers of Nuremberg") by Richard Wagner, is a musical drama in three acts. Musical dramas are called operas and this one is the longest opera that is commonly performed. It takes nearly four and a half hours without any breaks. It was first performed on 21 June 1868 at the National Theatre in Munich.

The plot of this opera is set in Nuremberg in the mid-16th century, when it was a free imperial city. Nuremberg was also one of the centres of the Renaissance in Northern Europe. The story revolves around the city's group of Master Singers, also known as Meistersinger, which is an association of amateur poets and musicians. These men were primarily master craftsmen of various other trades. The master singers, just like in their craft, had developed a craftsman-like approach to music-making. They developed an intricate system of rules for composing and performing songs. The opera is built on this time in history and the traditions of these master singers. One of the main characters of the opera is the cobbler-poet Hans Sachs, who was the most famous of the master-singers in that era.

Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg holds a very special place in Wagner's career.

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