catchylife

Evolution
The Thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus, Greek: dog-headed pouched one) was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times. Native to continental Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea, it is thought to have become extinct in the 20th century. It is commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger (because of its striped back), the Tasmanian Wolf, and colloquially the Tassie (or Tazzy) Tiger or simply the Tiger .
It was the last extant member of its genus, Thylacinus, although several related species have been found in the fossil record dating back to the early Miocene.
The Thylacine became extinct on the Australian mainland thousands of years before European settlement of the continent, but it survived on the island of Tasmania along with several other endemic species, including the Tasmanian Devil.
Intensive hunting encouraged by bounties is generally blamed for its extinction, but other contributory factors may have been disease, the introduction of dogs, and human encroachment into its habitat. Despite its official classification as extinct, sightings are still reported.
Like the tigers and wolves of the Northern Hemisphere, from which it obtained two of its common names, the Thylacine was an apex predator. As a marsupial, it was not related to these placental mammals, but because of convergent evolution it displayed the same general form and adaptations. Its closest living relative is thought to be either the Tasmanian Devil or Numbat.
The Thylacine was one of only two marsupials to have a pouch in both sexes (the other is the Water Opossum). The male Thylacine had a pouch that acted as a protective sheath, protecting the male's external reproductive organs while running through thick brush.

Extinction in Tasmania
Although long extinct on the Australian mainland by the time the European settlers arrived, the Thylacine survived into the 1930s in Tasmania. At the time of the first settlement, the heaviest distributions were in the northeast, northwest and north-midland regions. From the early days of European settlement they were rarely sighted but slowly began to be credited with numerous attacks on sheep. This led to the establishment of bounty schemes in an attempt to control their numbers. The Van Diemen's Land Company introduced bounties on the Thylacine from as early as 1830, and between 1888 and 1909 the Tasmanian government paid £1 per head for the animal (10 shillings for pups). In all they paid out 2,184 bounties, but it is thought that many more Thylacines were killed than were claimed.Its extinction is popularly attributed to these relentless efforts by farmers and bounty hunters. However, it is likely that multiple factors led to its decline and eventual extinction, including competition with wild dogs (introduced by settlers), erosion of habitat, the concurrent extinction of prey species, and a distemper-like disease that also affected many captive specimens at the time. Whatever the reason, the animal had become extremely rare in the wild by the late 1920s. There were several efforts to save the species from extinction. Records of the Wilsons Promontory management committee dating to 1908 included recommendations for Thylacines to be reintroduced to several suitable locations on the Victorian mainland.

In 1928, the Tasmanian Advisory Committee for Native Fauna had recommended a reserve to protect any remaining Thylacines, with potential sites of suitable habitat including the Arthur-Pie man area of western Tasmania.The last known wild Thylacine to be killed was shot in 1930, by farmer Wilf Batty in Mawbanna, in the northeast of the state. The animal (believed to be a male) had been seen around Batty's hen houses for several weeks.

Diet
The Thylacine was exclusively carnivorous. Its stomach was muscular with an ability to distend to allow the animal to eat large amounts of food at one time, probably an adaptation to compensate for long periods when hunting was unsuccessful and food scarce.] Analysis of the skeletal frame and observations of it in captivity suggest that it preferred to single out a target animal and pursue that animal until it was exhausted. Some studies conclude that the animal may have hunted in small family groups, with the main group herding prey in the general direction of an individual waiting in ambush. Trappers reported it as an ambush predator.
Their prey included kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, birds and small animals such as potoroos and possums. A favourite prey animal may have been the once common Tasmanian Emu. The emu was a large, flightless bird which shared the habitat of the Thylacine and was hunted to extinction around 1850, possibly coinciding with the decline in Thylacine number of Both dingos and foxes have been noted to hunt the emu on the mainland. Throughout the 20th century, the Thylacine was often characterised as primarily a blood drinker, but little reference is now made to this trait; the story's popularity seems to have originated from a single second-hand account. European settlers believed the Thylacine to prey upon farmers' sheep and poultry. In captivity, Thylacines were fed a wide variety of foods, including dead rabbits and wallabies as well as beef, mutton, horse, and occasionally poultry.

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The Kangxi Emperor (Chinese: 康熙帝; Kāng xī dì; Mongolian: Enkh Amgalan Khaan, May 4, 1654 – December 20, 1722,68 years old when he died) was the third Emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty and the second Qing emperor to rule over China proper, from 1661 to 1722. His reign of 61 years makes him the longest-reigning Chinese Emperor in history and one of the longest in the world.
However, having ascended the throne when aged seven, he did not exercise much, if any, control over the empire until later, that role being fulfilled by his four guardians and his grandmother, the Grand Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang. Kangxi, considered one of China's greatest Emperors, was a pivotal figure in Chinese history, having defeated the Three Feudatories, the Zheng Jing government at Taiwan who previously would not submit to Qing rule and the Tzarist Russia, expanded the Qing empire in the northwest, and achieved such literary feats as the Kangxi Dictionary. Kangxi's reign brought about long-term stability and relative wealth after years of war and chaos.
Emperor Kangxi was the architect of the period known as the "Prosperous Era of Kangxi and Qianlong" which lasted generations past his own life. During his reign, the Qing Empire controlled all territory of China proper, Manchuria, parts of the Russian Maritime province and Mongolia and Korea as its protectorate.

[information extracted from Wikipedia.]

Have you ever wondered what makes certain things glow under black lights?
For this experiment you will need:
• a black light • petroleum jelly• a piece of paper

1. First we’ll use the petroleum jelly as a kind of invisible ink. Dip your finger into the jelly, then use your finger to write a message on the piece of paper. Use more jelly if you need to – but this probably isn’t the time to write a long speech! When you’re finished, wipe any remaining jelly off your finger. Turn off the room lights and turn on the black light and check out the glowing light/message

-Definition of force

1. A force is a push or a pull.
2. A force can

-Make a stationary/object move and cause a moving object to speed up,slow down or to stop .

-Change the shape of an object and directions of a moving object.

-Different types of forces

-Gracitational force

-Elastic spring force

-Friction

-Magnetic force

Newton's 1st/3rd law

1st-Newton's first law of motion states that objects continue to move in a state of constant velocity unless acted upon by an external net force or resultant force.This law is an extension of Galileo's insight that constant velocity was associated with a lack of net force.

2nd-A modern statement of Newton's second law is a vector differential equation.

3rd-This law implies that forces always occur in action-and-reaction pairs.If object 1 and object 2 are considered to be in the same system, then the net force on the system due to the interactions between objects 1 and 2 is zero

Fun Facts

-Isaac Newton only read 4 thick books before he founded the laws of motion/forces.

-His sister Hannah has the same name as his mother.

- He was a rather sickly child at a young age so he mostly stayed inside and read and wrote alot of his time.

[Picture of an Eclipse, from blog.roodo.com]

-15 facts about an Eclipse

1. -Lunar eclipses can only occur during a full moon.
2. -Solar eclipses can only occur during a new moon.
3. -A Solar eclipse always occurs two weeks before or after a lunar eclipse.
4. -Eclipses very often occur in threes, alternating lunar, solar and lunar.
5. -The maximum time a lunar eclipse can last is 3 hours and 40 minutes.
6. -The longest time the Moon can stay in totality is 1 hour 40 minutes.
7. -The maximum time for a total solar eclipse is 7 minutes and 40 seconds.
8. -The maximum time for an annular solar eclipse is 12 minutes 24 seconds.
9. -Lunar eclipses can occur up to 3 times a year.
10. -Solar eclipses can occur at least 2 and no more than 5 times a year.
11. -Lunar eclipses are visible over an entire hemisphere.
12. -Solar eclipses are visible in a narrow path a maximum of 167 miles wide (269km.)
13. -At any geographic position on the Earth, a total solar eclipse occur an average of once every 360 years.
14. -The cycle of eclipses repeats every 18.6 years called the saros.
15. -The eclipse shadow moves at 2,000 mph at the Earth's poles and 1,000 mph at the Earth's equator.

Fun facts

1. Special Solar Eclipse Glasses let you see the partial eclipse, but not the total eclipse!
2. Even though the Eclipse is scientific, there is a chewing gum named Eclipse.
3. Many people think that a comets tail is always following behind it, but actually the coma, or tail can either be behind the comet or in front of it. Depending on which way the tail is pointing depends on where the Sun is. That's right, the Sun's heat and radiation produce a wind called the Solar Wind, as a comet gets close to the Sun it begins to melt. The gas and dust that melt off are blown away from the Sun by the solar winds. So if a comet is traveling towards the Sun then the tail will follow behind, but if the comet is traveling away from the Sun the tail will be in front of the comet.
4. If you weighed 70 pounds on the Earth, you would weigh about 27 pounds on Mars!So those who are overweight,you don't need to worry.Just go Mars!

*[Information from AstronomyKids.com]