Essay
...s. Officially known as Armillaria ostoyae, or the honey mushroom, the fungus is 3.5 miles across and takes up 1,665 football fields. The small mushrooms visible above ground are only the tip of the iceberg. Experts estimate that the giant mushroom is at least 2,400 years old, but could be 7,200 years old. Fact #2: When the locusts move across North Africa, eating everything in their path, they never touch the Ajuga plant. This is because there is a hormone in the Ajuga which is identical to an insect hormone in locusts and most other insects. .If the locust eats the Ajuga, it will cause him to molt and shed his skin. But, because the Ajuga hormone is five times stronger than that found in locusts, it would pop his skin too fast. So locusts that eat the Ajuga quickly lose the skin around their mouths and they starve to death. Fact#3: There is far more to a giraffe than merely "a long neck"!The giraffe has the most powerful heart in the animal kingdom. This is due to the fact that it has double the normal blood pressure. This high blood pressure is required to pump blood all the way up to its brain.The giraffe's blood pressure is two or three times that of a healthy man, and probably is the highest in the world. Fact #4: Although air may appear to move slowly most of the time, the air molecules within it travel at extremely rapid speeds. The warmer the air, the faster the molecules move. At freezing temperature they are really "slow"—only moving at about 1,085 miles [1,746 km] an hour! That is 1 1/2 times faster than the speed of sound at freezing temperatures. Fact#5: If the moon were much closer to the earth, the tides that the moon causes on the earth would become dangerously larger. Ocean waves would sweep across low-lying sections of the continents. Resultant friction would heat the oceans, destroying the delicate thermal balance needed for life on earth.A more distant moon would reduce tidal action, making the oceans more sluggish. Stagnant water would endanger marine life, yet it is that very marine life that produces the oxygen that we breathe. Fact#6: One moment you see the leaf butterfly, Kallima, fluttering through the air with its bright colors; the next moment it lands on a leaf for safety—and disappears! Upon landing, it folds its bright wings over its back; the undersides of which are the color of the leaf. Fact#7: The tiny Gecko Lizard can walk across the ceiling upside-down without falling off. Scientists could not figure out how the little fellow accomplished the task. Later it was estimated that one gecko lizard has at least 500 million suction cups on his 16 toes. Fact#8: Your age on different planets is different according to the orbit of the planet. For example if your age on earth is 13 years then your age on mercury's orbit will be: 13 years ÷ 0.241 = 54 years ol...