Presidential Dogs

US have already had 44 presidents, including the present leader, Barrack Obama. All of them are great men, great leaders. There is a saying that behind every man's success is a woman. While this can be held true. we can also say that behind these distinguished leaders are their dogs.

Time Magazine, in their Photo Essays, featured a collection starring former presidents and their dogs. Meet the presidential dogs and see what they looked like. Learn their names. Get some posing ideas so you can have your photo taken with your dog while imitating the pose of George Washington, Calvin Coolridge, Warren Harding, etc.

Here's the link to Time's photo gallery.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1830236_1746240,00.html


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The Beatles' Song for Dogs

The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and  critically acclaimed bands in music history had not only touched the lives of millions of their fans but also left a mark on the lives of dogs with one of their songs.

A Day in the Life made by the fab four, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr had on its ending, an ultrasonic whistle, audible only to dogs. This was recorded by Paul McCartney for his Shetland sheepdog.

Watch the video here, have your dog sit beside you and see if he can hear the ultrasonic whistle.



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About Batman Stingray

Stingrays are sensitive animals and they could not endure that type of mutilation.  Stingrays also have an amazing ability to regenerate their disc, which would further recognize 'batman rays' to be a developmental disfunction.

Batman Rays are the result of a defect during embryonic development of the disc.  The frontal area of the disc fails to fuse together.  This morph is very uncommon, and no one to date has been able to reproduce these rays with success.  Much like Albino or Xanthic morphs, these rays are a genetic misfit, and are usually only birthed in captivity because the survival rate of a deficient animal in the wild is next to none.  This is due to predation and competition for food. They live just normal stingray and needing the same fish supplies.

The so-called ‘Batman’ stingray morphology. The disk failed

to fuse in front of the head during embryonic development of

this Potamotrygon motoro.

These rays move, eat, and act like normal stingrays.  Special care must be provided as they tend to have a harder time competing for food.  Beyond the few that are being kept in captivity, very little is known about the Batman Ray.  We can assume that it is a genetic mutation, similar to a 'cleft lip' in a human, and that it is in no way man-made.  These stingrays demand a very high price due to rarity.

There is no known genetic component to cleft lips in humans, and batman morphology in stingrays almost certainly has nothing to do with genetics.

Dog Drinks Slow Motion

Have you ever observed closely how dogs drink water? Let's enter to the time warp and split seconds in thousand times to see clearly how dogs drink water.


The set up was not just in dog bow, not on pet feeder & waterer, not in fond or anywhere just outside, it's on the laboratory with the high definition camera was set.

No 10 Most Popular Cat Breed in US

The Sphynx (also known as Canadian Hairless) is a rare breed of cat known for its lack of a coat. As a hairless breed, the Sphynx can seem more alien than pet. Find out how this cat lost its fur!

- The Sphynx appears to be a hairless cat, although it is not truly hairless. The skin should have the texture of Chamois leather. It may be covered with very soft hair that is often described as peach fuzz. Because the sphynx cats have no hair to keep them warm they prefer to cuddle up against other animals and people, they even tend to cuddle up and sleep with their owners under the covers.

- While Sphynx cats lack a coat to shed or groom, they are not maintenance-free. Body oils, which would normally be absorbed by the hair, tend to build up on the skin.

- In 1966 a domestic cat gave birth to a hairless kitten in Toronto, Canada.

- This medium-sized cat breed is very active, playful with cat toys, extremely gentle and intelligent.

- Pricing on Sphynx usually depends on type, applicable markings and bloodlines distinguished by Grand Champion (GC), National, National Breed and/or Regional winning parentage (NW, BW, RW) or of Distinguished Merit parentage (DM).

It's the No. 10 of Animal Planet's Top 10 Most Popular Cat Breeds

Spider Silk as Artificial Muscle

Spider silk's unique ability to contract when wet is applied to produce artificial muscles.

Spider silk is renowned for its lightweight yet stronger-than-steel fibers, and now scientists are finding a new use for the fine, strong thread: as an artificial muscle.

Scientists at the University of Akron have developed two new ways to apply spider silk, and normal silk from silkworms, to artificial muscles. If refined and commercialized, scientists say the silk could be used in everything from robotics to microchip systems.

"No one thought about using spider silk as an artificial muscle," said Todd Blackledge, a professor at the University of Akron who studies spider silk. "But wrap a finger of drag line spider silk around your finger and dip it in water, and your finger will turn blue from the contraction of the fiber."

Scientists have known for years that some spider silk contracts dramatically, up to 50 percent, when it gets wet. The phenomena is known as super contraction. Scientists speculate that spiders use super contraction as a way to help tighten their webs when dew appears in the morning.

While powerful, super contraction generally only happens once; for a second contraction the fiber must be dried and manually stretched back to its original length.

Like human muscle, spider silk muscles would have degrees of movement, depending on the amount of water in the air around the muscle. High humidity would mean maximum contraction, low humidity would loosen the treads. Water breaks apart the hydrogen bonds inside the thin strands of protein, causing new, contracting bonds, to form. As the water evaporates the hydrogen bonds reform in their original positions.

While studying super contraction, the scientists found a second type of movement, known as cyclic contraction. Unlike super contraction, which generally is a one-time occurrence, cyclic contraction can instantly expand and contract as the humidity around the fiber changes, no drying necessary. While faster and more responsive than super contraction, cyclic contraction isn't nearly as dramatic; the fiber only shortens by 1 to 2 percent instead of 50 percent.

Video about Scientists experiment on Spiders Silk. http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/9550-science-investigations-spider-silk-video.htm

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Those small numbers are fine with Blackledge, who notes that human muscle, despite its seemingly wide range of motion, only contracts between 10 and 20 percent. The new artificial muscle could be used in microelectromechnical systems (or MEMS) -- tiny devices that operate on very small scales to, for example, separate individual cells. All a spider silk, cyclic contraction-based spider silk artificial muscle would have to do in a MEMS system is open or close a tiny channel to separate individual cells.

A MEMS system would be a great first use for spider silk artificial muscles because not much silk would be needed. Despite decades of research and dozens of attempts to create artificial spider silk, no one has succeeded in creating an effective replacement. All the silk for an artificial muscle would have to be gathered by hand from real spiders, a fairly labor intensive task.

Luckily, says Blackledge, the same silk worm-based silk that goes into dresses and medical products also exhibits similar contraction properties as spider silk and could also be used for artificial muscles at tiny scales.

Scaling up spider silk for human limb-sized artificial muscles could be problematic, says Brent Opell, a professor at Virginia Tech. A single thread of drag line spider silk is very narrow, about five microns in diameter, and has a high surface area that lets it quickly absorb large amounts of water to quickly contract.

Stacking multiple fibers next to each other will likely slow the diffusion of water through the fiber and slow the speed of contraction.

While there are still multiple issues that still need to be resolved before any actual device using spider silk as an artificial muscle is built, the idea does have its merits, especially when compared to other artificial muscles out there, says Adam Summers, a professor at the University of Washington.

"Spider silk is a remarkably long-lived polymer that would last for tens of thousands of cycles," said Summers.

Other artificial muscles exist that are superior to spider silk in terms of speed or amount of contraction, says Summers, but often require high amounts of electricity or toxic chemicals for activation and break down after a couple hundred cycles.

Blackledge also only studied one of the seven different types of silk produced by one of the more than 40,000 species of silk-producing spider species. Other spider species could produce silk with much higher cyclic contraction percentages or super contraction that has a faster response time.

Source:

Animal Planet at Discovery Channel

Parrots: exceptionally intelligent birds

• All parrots’ eggs are pure white.
• Parrots don’t have vocal cords, so they actually “trumpet” the sound by pushing air out of their trachea.
• Wild parrots do not learn to talk, but the African Grey is the easiest to teach.
• Parrots, when not nesting, live in groups known as flocks and are prone to squawking and screaming.
• Parrots are zygodactyls i.e. they have four toes on each foot.
• Most of the parrots build their nests in holes in trees, termite mounts, rock cavities or ground tunnels. Only a few build stick nests.
• The vocalizations of some parrots can be heard for up to 1 mile.
• While eating, parrots hold their food in one of their feet, which can be either left or right, making parrots left as well as right handed.
• Parrots have a thick muscular tongue that helps them eat fruit, seeds, buds, nectar, and pollen.
• Chocolate is poisonous to the Parrots.
• The Owl Parrot is a bird that cannot fly.
• Parrots are an endangered species.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Infraclass: Neognathae
Order: Psittaciformes

Parrots are fine-looking birds, mainly found inhabiting tropical and subtropical areas of the world. Grouped into two families, Psittacidae (true parrots) and Cacatuidae (cockatoos), they include as many as 350 species within their order. A parrot can be described as a bird with a strong curved beak, erect carriage, strong legs and clawed zygodactyl feet. Parrots can control the pitch of the sound by manipulating the shape and depth of the trachea. Experts say that when parrots talk, they are actually making variations on whistling.

Most parrot fossils were excavated in Europe. The earliest dates back to the Eocene, and are 50 million years old. Most of the complete skeletons were found in Germany and England. These birds are considered the great “parrot ancestors.” However, fossils of modern parrots—with the same bone structure and appearance as the ones we see today, are about 23 million years old.

There are actually two major groups of parrots: the psittacidae, and the cacutaidae. The latter has a movable head crest while the psittacidae have brighter, more vibrant colors. There are also enormous skeletal differences.
Some parrots are in danger of extinction. This includes the Spixs Macaw, of which only 7 survive in captivity. Naturalists once thought they had completely disappeared from the wild, but one was seen spotted flying in the South American rainforest. Breeding efforts have been stepped out to increase the parrots’ numbers.

Great Parrot Talent: