Crustaceans

       Crustaceans live in water except woodlouse which is found on land. These species have paled body and more than five pair of legs and two pair of antennae on their head. Most of the crustaceans have gills. Crabs, lobster and shrimps fall under this category.

Crabs – Crabs are around 5,700 species of crabs. Most of them live in the sea while some are found in fresh water. It has a hard shell and a flat body.

       The abdomen is located under the shell at the back of its body. A pair of antennae and tiny hairs are present along its mouth to help it to touch, smell and taste. They breathe through their gills present inside the shell at the tip of each leg. Its shell is known as a carapace, and protects it from its enemies.

       The strong pincers present on its body also help it to protect itself against enemies and in tearing its prey. It has five pair of legs which it uses for locomotion. Crabs walk sideways and have movable eyes.

Lobster – Lobster do not feed on dead sea creatures. Their claws are fearsome in appearance and they use it for cutting and grinding food.

       Atlantic lobster weighs nearly 20 kilograms. Lobsters move forward by beating swimmerets situated under their abdomen.
       They are gradually becoming extinct due to water pollution.

Rose

Pluto

       Pluto is usually the outermost planet in the Solar System and is the only planet that has not been visited by a spacecraft from Earth. This mysterious planet is really a double planet system, since its moon, Charon, is very close to.

1. What is unique about the orbit of Pluto?
       Pluto’s unique orbit causes it to periodically come within the orbit of Neptune. Pluto was the eighth planet from the sun from February 7th, 1979 through February 11, 1999. Now, Pluto will remain the ninth planet throughout the 23rd century.

2. How Pluto and Charon are unique?
       Pluto and Charon are unique in the sense that although Charon does not rotate synchronously, but Pluto does, they both keep the same face towards one another.

3. What are the two different parts, which Pluto has?
       Pluto is made up of two different parts. It has an icy part and a non-icy part. The icy part is made of frozen nitrogen, but it also contains smaller amounts of frozen carbon monoxide and methane.

4. Name Pluto’s moon and describe it.
       Pluto’s moon, Charon is 12,200 miles away from the planet and has diameter of 1200 km. Charon was first seen from Earth in 1978. Pluto and Charon are similar in size and they orbit each other like a double planet, with the same sides permanently facing each other.

5. Why Pluto’s and Neptune’s orbit overlap?
       Pluto takes approximately 248 years to orbit the Sun. Usually Pluto is the farthest planet away from the Sun, but every 248 years, Pluto’s orbit brings it closer to the Sun than Neptune.
Because, of this, Pluto’s and Neptune’s orbits overlap.

Moss

       Moss is the largest and diverse class of bryophytes with 9,000 species. Moss are anchored in the soil by the help of rhizoids which help in absorbing the nutrients. A short stem grows up from the rhizoids, covered by tiny leaves arranged in a spiral pattern around the stem at a height of six inches.

       Moss is the most widespread with nearly 15,000 species. Each individual is a tiny cotyledon, and packed tightly together forming a spongy carpet which provides spongy carp support to the individual plants. These plants cannot grow big as they do not have wooden tissue which makes them rigid. The moss plant is a gametophyte while the saprophytes have brown stalks with small bodies on the top.

       Moss generally has male and female gametophytes which produces male and female gametes, the sperms and the eggs. Moss is found in abundance on the earth.

Chinese civilization 2

1. Describe the Economic structure of China.
       In China, as in West Asia, Africa, or Europe, most people spent most of their time in farming for the last ten thousand years. In northern China, people mostly cultivated wheat, while in southern China it is mostly rice. But there was also a lot of trade in China, and between China and the West. Some of the traders went south to India, and some went along the northern Silk Road through Turkestan and Uzbekistan to the Persian Empire. Mainly people shipped silk to the West, and imported gold. People first used cowrie shells as money in China as early as 1800B.C., under the Shang Dynasty. Then people used metal imitations of cowrie shells, and then metal strings of beads called cash. We don’t know whether the idea to make coins with writing on them, guaranteed by the government, came from Western Asia or not, but there were definitely bronze coins in China by the 400’s B.C during the Chou dynasty.


                                   Coins
2. What did the Chinese people wear?
       People in China generally wore tunics (like long t-shirts). Women wore long tunics down to the ground, with belts, and men wore shorter ones down to their knees. Sometimes, they wore jackets over their tunics. In the winter, when it was cold, people wore padded jackets over their tunics, and sometimes pants under them. In early China, poor people made their clothes of hemp or ramie. Rich people wore silk. During the Sui Dynasty in the 500s AD, the emperor decided that all poor people had to wear blue or black clothes, and only rich people could wear colors. In the Sung Dynasty, about 1100 AD, a fashion started at the emperor’s court for women to bind their feet. Women thought that to be beautiful, they needed tiny feet, only about three inches long. They got these tiny feet, by wrapping tight bandages around the feet of little girls, about five or six years old.

                                   Chinese dress

Air and Ocean currents

       Due to the sun’s heat on the Earth, the air is caused and water moves around in the form of currents. When the particles of air and water are heated, they expand and rise. After rising to a certain level, the air and water cool and fall, producing patterns of circulating air and water, which are crucial in determining climate.

1. What is atmospheric pressure?
       Atmospheric pressure is the pressure at any point on the surface of the Earth due to the weight of the column of air above that point. The air around us is constantly pushing in every direction.


2. How is the area of low pressure and high pressure created?
       The sun heats up the lands and oceans, which in turn, heat the air directly above in the troposphere. As the air is heated, it rises and moves off, leaving behind an area of low pressure. When the air cools, it sinks down on the Earth’s surface in a different area, causing high pressure.

3. Briefly describe the wind.
       As the sun does not heat up the world evenly, so there is difference in pressure. When there is difference, air rushes from high pressure to low pressure areas in order to even out the pressure. This moving air is called wind.

4. What are global winds?
       The air, which is constantly circulating between the tropics and the poles, is known as the global wind. Warm air flows from the tropics and pushes out the cold air at the poles, which then flows back towards the tropics. The westerlies and trade winds are global winds.

5. What is Coriolis effect?
       As the air moves, the spinning of the Earth causes it to be deflected into fast spirals. This deflection is known as the Coriolis effect.

6. Why does the formation of Global winds take place?
       The formation of Global winds takes place because the areas near the Equator receive more heat from the sun than other areas. As the air is heated, it rises and spreads out. When it cools, it sinks at around 300 north and south of the Equator, causing pressure on the Earth surface to increase. This forces the air outwards in the direction of both the equator and the poles.

7. What are ocean currents?
       Ocean currents are wide bands of water, like rivers, which flow in the world’s oceans, moving water between hot and cold places.

8. What are the effects of ocean currents?
       As the currents vary in temperature and move at different speeds, so it can affect the climate. If a current is much warmer or cooler than the surrounding water, it can dramatically affect the climates of the coastal areas where it flows. A current called the Gulf of Mexico and Europe, brings a mild climate to Northwest Europe.

What is a Bone?

       The human skeleton is made of bones. Bones support the body, give shape to the body and protect the inside organs of the body like heart, lungs. About 206 bones make up the skeleton of the average adult. The outer part of the bone is tough and very hard.
       The inside of a bone is filled with a soft material known as marrow. It is in the marrow that the manufacture of blood cells takes place.
       The outside of the bone is covered with a fibrous sheath which is well supplied with blood vessels. There are different types of bones, each designed to perform in different ways. Long bones forming the limbs provide strength to support the bones that make up the structure of the body.
       Small bones found at the wrist and ankle are more squat to allow a variety of movement.

Which is the first iron bridge?

       Coalbrookdale Bridge in Shropshire, in North West England, constructed over the River Severn, is the first iron bridge. It was built in the year 1779. It was designed by Thomas Pritchard and built by Andrew Darby. It is credited to be the first cast-iron structure of the industrial age. It spans a width of 100 feet across the river and is in the form of five-ribbed semicircular arches. It is opened only to the pedestrians and is now a British national monument.

       This iron bridge is the result of the great industrial revolution. Before the industrial revolution, the bridges were made either of stones or wood. The iron bridge proved to be stronger and less expensive. From then onwards, the iron bridges gained popularity and wooden and stone bridges became fewer.


                     Coalbrookdale Bridge 1779

Arachnids

       There are nearly 70,000 species of arachnids. These include spiders, ticks, mites and scorpions. They are keen observers and can spot their prey easily. They are found mostly on land. Their body is divided into two parts and has four pairs of legs. They cannot fly as they do not have wings.

Spider – There are about 30,000 species of spiders and 20,000 are yet to be identified. Some of the species are harmful to man like brown recluse, black widow, brown widow and tarantula. A spider, known as wolf spider and found in Southern Europe is very dangerous. If it bites a person he will die on the spot.

       Generally a spider eats insects by trapping them in their silk webs. Some can eat birds and thus they are known as bird eating spiders. These spiders’ body can, grow up to 9 cm in length. Spiders cannot chew; they can only drink liquids.

Scorpions – Scorpions are more dangerous than spiders. All scorpions have a sting at the end of their curved tail on their back. They grab their prey with claw like pincers and sting their prey. They feed mainly on spiders, insects and other scorpions. They are mostly found in hot and dry places. They are ferocious animals and lead solitary lives. They are usually black or yellowish in color. Most scorpions are harmless though its sting is painful and dangerous which may even lead to death.

Neptune

       Neptune, which is usually the second farthest planet from the sun, is a very cold place. The planet has 13 moons and a very narrow, faint ring system. Neptune is smaller in diameter, but larger in mass than Uranus.

1. How much time does Neptune take to rotate on its axis and orbit the sun?
       Neptune takes nineteen and a half hours to rotate on its axis. It take 165 years to orbit the Sun. Therefore, one year on Neptune is equal to one hundred and sixty five earth years. One day on Neptune is equal to sixteen Earth hours.

2. How many moons does Neptune has?
       Neptune has eight known moons, seven small ones and Triton. Neptune’s largest moon is Triton. Triton is much larger than any of the planet’s other moons. Triton is a very cold place, so it is covered with ice.

3. What is unique about Neptune’s composition?
       Neptune’s composition is probably similar to that of Uranus, with various ices and rocks with about 15% hydrogen and a little helium. Like Uranus, but unlike Jupiter and Saturn, it may not have a distinct internal layering, but rather seems to be more or less uniform in composition.

Bryophytes

       Bryophytes are a division of green plants which includes mosses, ferns, liverwort and hornworts. Bryophytes differ from cone bearing plants, ferns and flowering plants as they lack a vascular system for transporting water. Their cells absorb water directly from the air or the ground.
       They grow in moist places like on the surface of the soil, rocks or over trees. These plants do not have true leaves, stems and roots. They are anchored by thread like structures known as rhizoids. Bryophytes are thought to be the first true plants which evolved from charophytes nearly 500 million years ago. Bryophytes do not expand their territory quickly as they usually grow together, often as mats or covers like a blanket in the entire forest. Since they have flagellated sperm, they live mostly in moist environments that enable a free movement of sperms. They are even found in shady places such as ravines and forests. These plants reproduce by spores. The ferns have fronds instead of leaves which are divided into leaves with sporangia under them, containing spores. When these spores mature they burst and get carried away by the wind which grows into prothallus, providing support to the young spore.
                     Charophytes

Chinese civilization 1

1. When did Buddhism become popular in China?
      Around 500 A.D., in the period of the Three Kingdoms, Buddhism first came to China from India, where the Buddha had lived and where Buddhism got started. Actually, there were Buddhists in China even during the Han Dynasty, around 50 A.D., but their number increased considerably under the Three Kingdoms. Some Buddhists were persecuted by the emperors, but generally Buddhism was popular and accepted. The Tang Dynasty Empress Wu, for example, was a Buddhist. But Taoism was still very strong in China.
      Under the Sung Dynasty (about 1000 A.D.), a sort of Confucianism combined with Buddhism became popular. Scholar reread the old Confucian philosophical writings in Buddhist terms, and tried to derive Buddhist meanings out of them.
            Buddha


2. Describe the religious life of Chinese people.
      In the Shang Dynasty the earliest period we know much about, people in Chine worshipped a lot of different gods-weather gods and sky gods- and also a higher god called Shang-Ti, whoruled over the other gods. People who lived during the Shang Dynasty also believed that their ancestors – their parents and grandparents – became like gods when they died, and that their ancestors wanted to be worshipped too, like gods. Each family worshipped own ancestors.
By the time of the Chou Dynasty (about 1100 B.C.), the Chinese were also worshipping a natural force called t’ien , which we usually translate as Heaven. Like Shang-Ti, Heaven ruled over all the other gods.
      Around 600 B.C., under the Eastern Chou Dynasty, and for the next two hundred years, there were a lot of new ideas in Chinese religion. First, a Chinese philosopher named Lao Tzu (he may be mythical) created the philosophy of Taoism, which became very popular. Taoism holds that people should not try to get their way by force, but through compromise and using natural forces in their favor. It is partly a philosophy, and partly a religious faith. Taoism believe that there is a universal force flowing through all living things, and respecting that force is essential for a happy life.
      Not long after Lao Tzu, another Chinese scholar called Confucius created a different philosophical system called Confucianism, which disagreed with Taoism, but also became very popular.
      Two other philosophical schools of this period were one stared by Mo Tzu, which suggested that the way to happiness was for everyone to treated all other people as well as they treated their own families, and Legalism (a kind of Confucianism), which believed that people were all basically bad, and needed to be kept in line by strict laws and harsh punishments in order to create order and peace.
            Taoism

Hot and cold weather

      The temperature on Earth can vary up to a large extent. It can range from extreme cold temperature of -880C, measured at Vostok in Antarctica to an unbearably hot temperature of 580C recorded at Al’Aziziyah, Libya. Extreme hot and cold weather can be highly problematic and has strange effects on people and places.

1. How are the ice storms caused?
      The ice storms are caused by rain falling onto the frozen surfaces. It happens when a mass of warm air passes through a cold area in winter, bringing rain that falls in the form of liquid raindrops, intead of as snow or hail. But when the drops of water hit freezing houses, trees, etc, they immediately freeze into a coating of solid ice.

2. What are Parkas?
      Parkas are the traditional coats, which are used by children in Alaska, USA. These coats are made from the animal skins, which help them to keep warm.

3. What are the impacts of ice storms?
      Due to ice storms, outdoor surfaces get covered with a layer of ice. The layer can be about six inches thick. It makes roads hazardous to drive on. It also coats the branches of the trees and makes them so heavy that they break the electricity supply and cut off roads, due to which people can freeze to death in their own home.

4. What are Blizzards and why are they dangerous?
      Blizzards are combination of heavy snow and strong winds. They are dangerous because blizzard victims are blinded by the swirling snow, as well as the freezing cold. In the year 1995, a blizzard hit a soccer field and two soccer teams died. These players were unable to see far enough to find their way back to their changing rooms.
Blizzards

5. What is a heat wave and how is it caused?
      A heat wave is a period of extra hot weather. Heat waves are caused due to the lack of wind and clouds, which allows the sun to heat up the land and the atmosphere much more than the normal. The hotter the air is, the more water it can hold in the form of tiny invisible droplets. This makes it feel very sticky.

6. How is the heatstroke caused?
      Heatstroke is caused by getting too hot, usually in the sun. Normally, if we get too hot, our body sweats. The sweating helps our skin to remain cool. But heatstroke stops our body from sweating and, therefore, we get too much hot.

7. When can the heatstroke happen quickly?
      The heatstroke can happen quickly when we are inside our car. The windows of the car act like a green house and stops heat from escaping. This is why animals and babies should not be left inside on the hot sunny day.

8. How can the sunlight be harmful for us?
      Although the sun provides warmth and energy, but direct sunlight can be bad for us, as it can cause wrinkles, sunburn and even skin cancer.

What is a Muscle?

      All movements in our body are controlled by muscles, which are living tissues and work by pulling against the skeleton. Muscles are made of bundles of fibers, which contract when they receive a signal from the nerves. The power of a muscle depends on the number of fibers.
      These increase with exercise, which is the reason why body builders develop big muscles.
      There are three types of muscles in the body. The first is skeletal or voluntary muscle. Together with the bones and tendons, it is responsible for all forms of conscious movements. The second is the smooth muscle, which is concerned with the in voluntary movement of internal organs, such as the guts and bladder, the third is cardiac muscle which makes up the main bulk of the heart. This type of muscle works throughout life.

When was the internet created?

      Internet is one of the modern means of communication. It is also the cheapest and quickest means of communication. Through it, information on any field can be gathered within minutes. Messages can be sent and received very quickly. Its creation has helped people from all walks of life. Its easy and cheap accessibility has made it very popular.

      It started in 1983. The US Defence had already developed a basic system of internet and used it as a safe system for their information. The idea of internet was borrowed from them. In the beginning, the internet had an academic origin. It consisted of a framework connecting a number of computer networks together. It proved to be very popular and quickly developed into a commercial medium. The mid 1990s saw millions of computers connected to the World Wide Web.

Fact
      Mobile phone has added another feather to the modern system of communication. Mobile phone was first used in Chicago in the year 1983. It was a great success and has become very popular throughout the world.

Fish

      They are found in seas, fresh water rivers and lakes. They are cold blooded animals with backbone. Some are fast streamlined swimmers while some have flat body and are found in the river beds. Some of the fish fly and even generate electricity. There are nearly 24,000 species of fish. Fish have special organs known as gills which help them to filter oxygen from water.
Fishes use fins to maintain the balance of their body while using its tail for swimming. Fishes are categorized into three types namely Agnatha or Jawless, Chondricthyes or fish with skeleton of cartilage and osteichthyes or fish with bones.

Bony fish – There are nearly 23,000 species of bony fish. These fish have a flap over the gills known as operculum. The longest bony fish is giant oarfish which is nearly 15 m long and the ocean sunfish is the heaviest bony fish.
Some of the bony fish include perch, truot angelfish, minnows, tuna and goldfish.
Trout

Jawless fish – Jawless fish evolved over 500 million years ago. They do not have jaws. Their jaws have round mouths with sharp teeth. These fish do not have scales on their body and are quite slimy.
Jawless fish

Cartilaginous fish – Skeleton of Cartilaginous fish is made up of cartilage and not bones. There are nearly 850 species of cartilaginous fish and are active hunters. These fish have a set of teeth on their jaws. Sharks, chimeras and rays are cartilaginous fish. Some of the fish are discussed below:
Flying Fish – Flying fish can easily be identified by their huge flying fins and lopsided tails.
They are capable of jumping out of water and gliding through the air over considerable distance. They can glide as far as 100 meters and as high as one meter above the surface of water.
Flying Fish

      There are nearly 50 species of flying fishes belonging to the family, Exocoetidae, and are mostly marine fishes of small to medium size. The young flying fish is quite different from the adult ones as they have various color patterns and large pair of like whiskers. These whiskers disappear as the fish become mature.
Flying fish use their flying talent in order to escape predators such as swordfish, tunas and other larger fishes. These fish feed mainly on small crustaceans and other plankton animals.

Manta Ray – Manta Ray are found in warm waters. They swim very slowly and are capable of increasing their speed. They mainly feed on tiny shell fish and small organisms floating on water. Atlantic manta is the biggest of all the rays. It measures nearly 5.2 m lengthwise and is 7 m wide. Rays have broad, flattened bodies.
They are harmless and have a short tail. They are acrobatic and can leap from water. Remoras are seen often with mantas. They stay near manta’s mouth and some times even inside the gills. The remoras feed on parasites on the manta’s body and sometimes even eat the bits of mantas food.

Whale Shark – Whale Shark is not a whale but the biggest fish with a huge mouth. Its mouth is situated at the front of its head and not on the underside of the head like in most sharks.

The whale shark has distinctive light yellow markings on its very thick dark grey skin, which is up to 4 inches thick. This shark is a filter feeder and sieves enormous amounts of plankton which it eats through its gills as it swims.
Whale Shark

      The whale shark is up to 46 feet long and weights 15 tons. It is the largest fish in the world. Female sharks are larger than males. These sharks are solitary creatures, so groups of whale shark are rarely seen. They are found in the warm oceans from equator to about 30-400 latitudes. They are harmless and can live up to the age of 100-150 years.

Clown Fish – Clown Fish are also known as Anemone fish. These fish have deep compressed bodies and small mouths with a toothless palate. It is a colorful animal, mostly red and orange with white bands on its body.
They are found in the tropical waters from the Red sea, in the pacific ocean, and from Australia to Solomon islands. They live mostly in shallow lagoons and seaward reefs. They feed on zoo plankton and algae.
Clown Fish

Sea horse – Sea horse is a salt water fish belonging to the family of syngathidae. This fish is called sea horse because it resembles a horse.
It lives mainly in the shallow coastal areas. There are nearly fifty species of sea horse found in the world.

      It swims with its body held in vertical position and its head facing forward. It appears only in summer and disappears in winter.

Uranus

      Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun, has its spin axis almost in the plane of its orbit around the Sun. This produces unusual stars and causes unique magnetic and electric field structures.


1.Why does the Uranus appear to be blue green?
      The Uranus appears to be blue green because the methane gas of the atmosphere traps red light and does not allow that color to escape.

2. How many rings does Uranus have?
      Uranus has 11 known rings, all are very faint. The brightest is known as EPSILON ring.

3. What’s unique about the spinning of Uranus?
Most of the planets spin on an axis nearly perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, but Uranus’s axis is almost parallel to the ecliptic.

4. How was the Uranus named?
      Uranus was named after Ouranos, one of the first Gods in Greek mythology.

5. How many moons does Uranus have?
      The total number of moons of Uranus is 21, the largest number for nay planet in our Solar System. With the help of more powerful telescopes, more moons may be revealed.

6. Give a brief description of Uranus’ atmosphere.
      Uranus’s atmosphere is about 83% hydrogen, 15% helium and 2% methane. Uranus has bands of clouds that blow around rapidly.

Fungus

      Fungus or Fungi include some of the most important organisms which play a vital role in maintaining the ecological balance. Fungi break down dead organic material and continue the cycle of nutrients through the eco-system.

      They even provide numerous drugs like penicillin and antibiotics, and food like mushroom.
      Truffles, morels, bubbles are found in bread, beer and champagne. Though earlier scientists classified them as plants, but they have no leaves or true roots. Thus they are not able to make their own food. A number of fungi like yeast are important as model organism for studying the problems in genetics and molecular biology.

Shaggy Ink Cap – Shaggy Ink Cap’s Latin name is coprinus comatus meaning “shaggy mane”. This fungus grows up to 30 cm in grassy areas. It has white egg shaped body with pale grey patches, and also bell shaped with irregular brown patches. It grows in small clumps during August and October.
Shaggy Ink Cap


      As it expands it matures. It can be anywhere between 7.5 cm and 12 cm in size and conical in shape but gradually flattens with age and gets covered with shaggy scales, whitish or grayish in color. Its gill soon darkens, and becomes black and full of liquid.

      The ink generally hangs from the cap margin. Its stem is tall and slender. It is about 20 cm long and white but gradually gets covered with black ink while its flesh is white and has a distinctive smell at the younger stages. But during the inky stages it smells foul.

Puff ball – Puff ball is a smoke ball fungus and the portion above the ground is a stemless brownish sac with an opening at the top. The most common puff ball is Lycoperdon gemmatum which may reach up to a diameter of 1 ft or more.
      All these puff balls are not poisonous and some are edible when young.
Puff ball


Honey fungus – Honey fungus is a disease of the trees, shrubs, woody climbers and herbaceous woods which is caused by a species of the Armillaria fungus. It is mostly found in the United Kingdom, living on dead and decaying woody material in the soil. Fungus grows in the from of black root-like rhizomorphs grow close to the soil surface and invade the new roots or the root collar of woody plants. The tree which gets infected with this, dies soon. Once the fungus girdles its extensive root death takes place. It spreads from root to root where they are in close contact.

      The honey fungus’ fruiting body appears in autumn. Whenever a tree gets infected, a resin or watery liquid from the bark of the tree oozes out and the bark around the base dies.
Honey fungus

      The clumps of honey brown toadstool appear in late September or early October. Honey fungus can be prevented by destroying all the dead and woody plants and removing the stump or treating the stump with Ammonium Sulphamate which will kill it and prevent the tree from decaying.

Destroying Angle – Destroying Angle are one of the most poisonous plants known to man. They weigh little more than thirty grams. They are large, white mushrooms which are found alone or in groups in any sort of forest, lawns etc. They are mostly found in North America but are most common in Nova Scotia.
Destroying Angle

Yeast – Yeast are tiny, rounded, colored bodies belonging to the fungi family. Yeast cells are reproduced by budding which means if any projection is cut off from the parent cell it can grow into a new yeast.

      As they mature they from a substance known as zymase, an invertase a kind of enzyme which can easily ferment the starch to sugar, sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Maya Civilization

      Maya, in around 2600 B.C., was the best known of all the classical civilizations. It originated in Yucatan. They rose to prominence in and around 250 A.D. In present day, these areas are known as Southern Mexico, Guatemala, Northern Belize and Western Honduras. It was built on the inherited inventions and ideas of earlier civilizations of Olmec.

1. Describe the structure of Maya Society?
      They lived in small villages consisting of household compounds occupied by extended families. Their thatched-roof houses were usually one-room buts with walls of interwoven wooden poles covered with dried mud. These buts were used primarily for sleeping; daily chopres such as cooking took place outdoors in the central communal compound. The division of labour between men and women was clearly defined; the men looked after but building and caring for the cornfields, and the women prepared food, may clothing, and tended to the family’s domestic needs. These ancient farming methods and family traditions have persisted over the centuries and continue to be followed in many rural communities today.

2. Describe the Maya technique of agriculture.
      The first people to occupy the Yucatan Peninsula were hunters and gatherers, who arrived some 11,000 years ago. These nomadic people lived in small family bands. Around 2500 B.C., they started cultivating maize and abandoned a nomadic way of life to settle in villages surrounded by cornfields.

      The Maya created arable land by using a “slash-and-burn” technique to clear the forests. They planted maize and secondary crops, such as beans, squash, and tobacco. In the highlands to the west, they terraced the slopes on mountainsides; in the lowlands, they cleared the jungle for planting. After a period of two years, they moved their fields to new locations, allowing the old fields to lie fallow for ten years before reusing them.

3. What was the importance of writing in the Maya Civilization?
      Importance of writing in the Maya civilization can be extracted in detail from the Tablet of the 96 Glyphs, in the tower of the “Palace” at Palenque. This is considered one of the most beautiful inscriptions ever carved by the Mayans.

      From the very beginning, the Mayans used writing as a propaganda tool, rather than as a means of recording accurate details of history. In a hierarchical society where the elites competed for prestige and leadership positions, writing was used to reinforce a ruler’s military power and to legitimize his descent from noble ancestors and the gods. Writings on stone monuments were designed to place rulers in the most favourable light possible and ancient sculptural inscriptions deal primarily with historical events, marriages, births, military campaigns and victories, rulers and other dynastic affairs.
Glyph

4. Describe briefly the Maya Calendar.
      The Maya calendar, in its final form, probably dates back to the 1st century B.C., and may have originated with the Olmec civilization. It is extremely accurate and the calculations of Mayan priests were so precise that their calendar correction is 10,000th of a day more exact than the standard the world uses today. They used 20-day months, and had two calendar years; the 260-day Sacred Round, or tzolkin, and the 365-day Vague Year, or haab. These two calendars coincided every 52 years. The 52-year period of time was called a “bundle” and meant the same to the Mayans as our century does to us.

      The Sacred Round of 260 days is composed of two smaller cycles: the numbers one through thirteen, coupled with twenty different day names. Each of the day names is represented by a god.

      The 260-day calendar was used to determine important activities related to the gods and humans. It was used to name individuals, predict the future, decide the auspicious dates for battles, marriages, and so on.


5. How far had education developed during the Maya period?
      The Maya writing system is considered by archaeologists to be the most sophisticated system ever developed in Mesoamerica.

      The Mayans wrote using 800 individual signs or glyphs, paired in columns that read together from left to right and top to bottom. Mayan glyphs represented words or syllables that could be combined to form any word or concept in the Mayan language, including numbers, time periods, royal names, titles, etc. Hieroglyphic inscriptions were either carved in stone and wood on Maya monuments and architecture, or painted on paper, plastered walls and pottery. The unit of the Maya writing system is the glyphic cartouche, which is equivalent to the words and sentences of a modern language. Maya cartouches included at least three or four glyphs and as many as fifty. Each cartouche contained various glyphs, as well as prefixes and suffixes. There is no Maya alphabet.

6. Describe the religious life of Maya.
      The Maya had a bewildering number of gods, with at least 166 named deities. This is partly because each of the gods had many aspects. Some had more than one sex; others could be both young and old; and every god, representing a heavenly body, had a different Underworld face, which appeared when the god “died” in the evening.

      Some Maya sources also speak of a single supreme deity, called Itzamna, the inventor of writing, and patron of the arts and sciences. His wile was Ix Chel, the goddess of weaving, medicine and childbirth; she was also the ancient goddess of the Moon. For the Mayans, blood sacrifice was necessary for the survival of both gods and people, sending human energy sky ward and receiving divine power in return.
God of Maya people

7. Why is the writing of Mayans difficult to interpret?
      Mayan writing is difficult to interpret for a number of reasons. First, glyphs do not represent just sounds or ideas, they can represent both, making it difficult to know how each glyph or cartouche should be read. Second, many Maya glyphs can have more than one meaning, and many Maya concepts can be written in more than one way. Third, some glyphs represent more than one phonetic sound, while also representing an idea.

8. How do mountains play an important role in Maya life?
      Many Mayans are convinced that the mountains, which surround them, are analogous to the ancient temple-pyramids. Mountains and hills are also thought to be the homes of ancestral deities. The Mayans also believe in an Earth Lord – a fat, greedy half-breed, who lives in caves and cenotes, controls all waterholes, and produces lightning and rain.

Floods and Droughts

      Human beings, animals as well as plants depend upon water for their survival. For this, they rely on the weather, which can bring rain. If there is too little rain, rivers dry and the crops get ruined. On the other hand, if there is too much rain, it leads to floods, which can wash away the fertile soils and can damage crops as well as buildings.

1. When does the flood occur?
      Generally, the ground soaks the rainwater or sometimes it flows into rivers or streams. The flood occurs when there is suddenly too much water for the ground to gold and streams, rivers and drains overflow.


2. What is the strange fact about river Nile?
      The river Nile floods naturally every summer, watering the land in the Nile valley and making it fertile or, in other words we can say, making soil good for growing crops.

3. How the flood is very dangerous?
      The flood is very dangerous as it causes a lot of damage. It drowns people and animals, destroys homes and crops. Flood can also cause water shortages. They cover the land with dirty water, contaminating clean water supplies and helping diseases to spread.

4. Which area of the world was known as Dust Bowl and why?
      From the year 1931 to 1938, a severe drought hit the Southern great plains of the USA. The farmers had over worked the land, removing the grasses that held the soil in place. As the land dried out during the drought, the soil blew away, creating violent dust storms. The area became useless for farming and was named the Dust Bowl.

5. When does the drought happen?
      A drought happens when there is less than the expected amount of rain. Droughts are often hard to predict, but they usually happen when winds change direction and no rain clouds are blown over the land. A bad drought may last for several years and make the land completely infertile.


6. What is the effect on the soil due to the lack of rain?
      Lack of rain can make soil harden, crack into lumps, and eventually crumble into dry dust.

Collection

What is our Stomach made of?

      Our stomach is bag shaped with a capacity of about one liter. It receives the food from the oesophagus and mixes and churns the food with enzymes and acid. Food remains in the stomach for three to four hours and then passes to intestine for further digestion.


      The stomach wall has three layers of muscles lengthwise, circular and slanting. These muscles help in churning the food.

      It has a rich supply of blood vessels which bring nutrients and oxygen to the stomach. The stomach wall contains glands which secrete gastric juice, a liquid containing acid and enzymes to digest the food.

      The stomach wall is protected from the corrosive action of the acid as it is lined with thick mucus. If due to some reason, the wall comes in contact with the acid, painful ulcers are formed inside.

80 VCD English for You (EFU)

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