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Facts to know about Japan

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Syskool
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  • The Japanese name for Japan is “Nihon” or “Nippon” which means “sun-origin”.
  • Due to gases produced by power plants, Japan sometimes suffers from acid rain.
  • Japan suffers 1,500 earthquakes every year.
  • Japan has more than 50,000 people who are over 100 years old.
  • Japanese Trains are among the world’s most punctual: their average delay is just18 seconds.
  • In Korea and Japan, there is a Cat Cafe where you can go to drink coffee and hang out with cats for hours.
  • Sleeping on the job is acceptable in Japan, as it’s viewed as exhaustion from working hard.
  • Japan and Russia still  haven’t signed a peace treaty to end World War II due to the Kuril Islands dispute.
  • Black cats are considered to bring good luck in Japan.
  • In Japan, there’s a train that “floats” above the tracks by magnetism, reaching 500 km/h (311 mph).
  • Over 70% of Japan consists of mountains. The country also has over 200 volcanoes.
  • A Paleolithic culture from about 30,000 BC is the first known inhabitants of Japan.
  • Japan has produced 15 Nobel laureates (in chemistry, medicine and physics), 3 Fields medalists and one Gauss Prize laureate.
  • Japan is an island nation surrounded by the Sea of Japan to the East and the Pacific Ocean to the West.
  • Japan’s unemployment rate is less than 4%
  • Japan is the world’s largest consumer of Amazon rainforest timber.
  • Japan produces 60% of the world’s animated TV shows.
  • Many couples in Japan celebrate Christmas like Valentine’s Day.  It is definitely more of a “lovers” holiday in Japan.
  •  Noodles, especially soba (buckwheat), are slurped somewhat loudly when eaten. It has been said slurping indicates the food is delicious.  The slurping also serves to cool down the hot noodles for eating.
  • Average life expectancy in Japan is one of the highest in the world. Japanese people live an average of 4 years longer than Americans.
  • Japan is the largest automobile producer in the world. Some of the most well-known companies in the world are Japanese such as Toyota, Honda, Sony, Nintendo, Canon, Panasonic, Toshiba, and Sharp.
  • Tokyo is the 2nd most expensive city to live in the world.
  • Late – night dancing is illegal in Japan.

 

 Also, Read:
Important facts to know about the USA
Amazing facts about France
Facts about Singapore

Amazing facts about Eyes

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Syskool
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  • An Ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
  • Black lemurs are thought to be the only primates, besides humans, to have blue eyes.
  • Chameleons can move their eyes in two directions at the same time.
  • Bees have five eyes.
  • Goldfish can’t close their eyes as they have no eyelids.
  • If the human eye was a digital camera it would have 576 megapixels.
  • People with blue eyes have a higher alcohol tolerance.
  • The human eye can distinguish about 10 million different colors.
  • People say “in the blink of an eye” because it’s the fastest muscle in the body
  • If your eyes are blue, you share a common ancestor with every other blue-eyed individual in the world
  • Diabetes is often first detected during an eye exam
  • You see with your brain, not your eyes. Our eyes function like a camera, capturing light and sending data back to the brain.
  • The human eye can function at 100% at any given moment, without needing to rest.
  • The largest eye on the planet belongs to the Colossal Squid, and measures around 27cm across.
  • A dragonfly has 30,000 lenses in its eyes, assisting them with motion detection and making them very difficult for predators to kill.
  • When your eyes are watering it may be a sign of dry-eye, and your eyes are producing more moisture to compensate.
  • Around the pupil is a colored muscle called the “iris.” Our eyes may be BLUE, BROWN, GREEN, GRAY OR BLACK because that is the color of the iris.
  • Our eyes have many parts. The black part on the front of our eye is called the “pupil.” It is really a little hole that opens into the back part of our eyes.
  • Babies’ eyes do not produce tears until the baby is approximately six to eight weeks old.

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Valuable facts about Air

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Syskool
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  • The gas nitrogen makes up 78.08% of the air. Nitrogen is largely unreactive, but it sometimes reacts with oxygen to form oxides of nitrogen.
  • Nitrogen is continually recycled by the bacteria that consume plant and animal waste.
  • Oxygen makes up 20.94% of the air. Animals breathe in oxygen. Plants give it out as they take their energy from sunlight in photosynthesis.
  • Carbon dioxide makes up 0.03% of the air. Carbon dioxide is continually recycled as it is breathed out by animals and taken in by plants in photosynthesis.
  • The air contains other, inert (unreactive) gases: 0.93% is argon; 0.0018% is neon; 0.0005% is helium.
  • There are tiny traces of krypton and xenon which are also inert.
  • Ozone makes up 0.00006% of the air. It is created when sunlight breaks up oxygen.
  • Hydrogen makes up 0.00005% of the air. This gas is continually drifting off into space.
  • Up to 10 km above the ground, the air is always moist because it contains an invisible gas called water vapour.
  • There is enough water vapour in the air to flood the globe to a depth of 2.5 m.
  • Water vapour enters the air when it evaporates from oceans, rivers and lakes.
  • Water vapour leaves the air when it cools and condenses (turns to drops of water) to form clouds. Most clouds eventually turn to rain, and so the water falls back to the ground. This is called precipitation.
  • Like a sponge, the air soaks up evaporating water until it is saturated (full).
  • It can only take in more water if it warms up and expands.
  • If saturated air cools, it contracts and squeezes out the water vapour, forcing it to condense into drops of water.
  • The point at which this happens is called the dew point.
  • Humidity is the amount of water in the air.
  • Absolute humidity is the weight of water in grams in a particular volume of air.
  • Relative humidity, which is written as a percentage, is the amount of water in the air compared to the amount of water the air could hold when saturated.
  • Air is a mixture of gases containing nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), and water vapour, dust particles and other gases (1 %).
  • Air occupies space. It also has weight.
  • One-fifth of the air is oxygen. Oxygen is necessary for combustion and respiration.
  • Photosynthesis in plants is possible because of carbon dioxide in the air.
  • Nitrogen present in the air is necessary for the growth of plants.
  • The ozone layer protects us from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun.
  • Burning of fuels and factory wastes are the main causes of air pollution. Cutting down of trees has also led to an increase in air pollution.
  • Planting trees, taking measures to reduce smoke and pollutants in factories, and using catalytic converters and unleaded petrol in automobiles, are some ways of reducing air pollution

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Surprising Facts About the Respiratory System

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Syskool
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  • The nose has a 4 stage filtration system. By breathing into the mouth you go straight to stage 4. This easily results in sore throats, tonsillitis, and even ear infections.
  • The more you breathe (hyperventilation) the hungrier you will be and the more acidic the body will become.
  • Breathing through the mouth can, over time, create a shrinking of the jaw – hence resulting in crooked teeth (or a relapse after having your braces removed).
  • Inhaling through the nose, and exhaling through the mouth messes with the balance of CO2 in the body. This results in a loss of CO2. Holding the breath can increase CO2, which will help to rebalance the PH level.
  • We naturally change sides in our sleep approximately every 30 minutes, and this is mostly due to the balancing of the breath through each of the nostrils.
  • Getting up during the night to urinate is most likely due to breathing with the mouth open. Breathing through the mouth causes the bladder to shrink, making one feel as though they need to head to the bathroom pronto!
  • The right lung is slightly larger than the left.
  • Hairs in the nose help to clean the air we breathe as well as warming it.
  • The highest recorded “sneeze  speed” is 165 km per hour.
  • The surface area of the lungs is roughly the same size as a tennis court.
  • The capillaries in the lungs would extend 1,600 kilometres if placed end to end.
  • We lose half a litre of water a day through breathing. This is the water vapour we see when we breathe onto the glass.
  • A person at rest usually breathes between 12 and 15 times a minute.
  • The breathing rate is faster in children and women than in men.
  • The respiratory system contains a total of about 1500 miles (2400 km) of airways. The airways begin with the trachea (windpipe), which branches into two bronchi, one going to each lung. The bronchi then divide into thousands of tiny bronchioles within the lungs.
  • An adult lung contains 300 million to 500 million tiny air sacs, known as alveoli, at the ends of the bronchioles.
  • The lungs are able to float on water since they contain so many air sacs.
  • If all the alveoli in both lungs were flattened out, they would have a total area of about 160 square meters – about 80% of the size of a singles tennis court and about 80 times greater than the surface area of an average-sized adult’s skin.
  • The interior lining of an alveolus is covered by a thin layer of water, which enables oxygen to move through the wall of the alveolus and into the bloodstream efficiently.
  • Water molecules on the lining of an alveolus are attracted to each other, creating a force known as surface tension. When the alveoli become smaller during exhalation, the surface tension increases. This could cause the alveoli to collapse and prevent them from expanding again.
  • The lining of alveoli produces a substance called a surfactant. The surfactant reduces the surface tension of water, preventing the alveoli from collapsing.
  • The surface of an alveolus is covered with capillaries. Capillaries are narrow blood vessels with a thin wall that is just one cell thick. If all the capillaries in the lungs were placed end to end they would have a length of about 1600 km.
  •  Like the wall of capillaries, the wall of an alveolus is also just one cell layer thick. This allows for quick absorption of oxygen from the alveoli into the capillaries and the quick release of carbon dioxide from the capillaries into the alveoli.
  • A red blood cell contains about 250 million hemoglobin molecules, which carry oxygen through the blood. Each hemoglobin molecule can carry four oxygen molecules. There are 4 million to 6 million red blood cells in each microliter (cubic millimeter) of blood.
  • Some people can hold their breath for more than 20 minutes.
  • 13th century: Anatomist and physiologist Ibn Al-Nafis advances his theory that the blood must have passed through the pulmonary artery, through the lungs, and back into the heart to be pumped around the body. This is believed by many to be the first scientific description of pulmonary circulation.
  • 1986: Cooper performs the first successful double lung transplant.
  •   Hiccups are caused by various things and occur due to sudden movements in a diaphragm. This is a product of spasms and eating too fast is another cause.
  •  ”Laughter is the best medicine”, may have some truth. It helps to boost the immune system.
  •  When any irritant, like dust particle or pollen, comes in contact with mucus membranes in the nose. The body triggers that foreign substance by sneezing.
  • Guinness World Records lists that Charles Osborne of Anthon, Iowa as a record holder for hiccuping. For 68 years, he hiccuped.

Also, Read:

Important Facts about your Digestive System

Respiratory System and Endocrine System

The Circulatory System: Carrier of Life

What is Osmosis?

By
Syskool
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1
osmosis
osmosis

The term osmosis describes the movement of a solvent through a semi-permeable membrane from a less concentrated solution to a more concentrated one. Water is sometimes called “the perfect solvent,” and living tissue is the best example of a semi-permeable membrane.

Osmosis has a number of life-preserving functions: it assists plants in receiving water, it helps in the preservation of fruit and meat, and is even used in kidney dialysis. In addition, osmosis can be reversed to remove salt and other impurities from water.

Plants depend on osmosis to move water from their roots to their leaves. The further toward the edge or the top of the plant, the greater the solute concentration, which creates a difference in osmotic pressure. This is known as osmotic potential, which draws water upward. Osmosis protects leaves against losing water through evaporation.

Osmosis is vital to life because of its function in maintaining equilibrium inside and outside of a cell.  However, conditions on a cell can sometimes cause problems.  If there is a high concentration, salt outside a plant, all the water from inside plant cells will diffuse outside of the plant and cause the plant cells to shrink in a process called plasmolysis.  An example of plasmolysis is the wilting of flowers after they are kept out of water for a time.  Because the water content in the plant goes down, the cells constrict through plasmolysis and the whole plant grows limp, as the cells aren’t as tightly packed in the plant and thus can’t support the weight of the leaves.

Read Also: Flowering Plants

When there is a water shortage, however, other cells transmit signals to the guard cells that cause them to release their potassium. This decreases their osmotic potential, and water passes out of the guard cells to the thirsty cells around them. At the same time, the resultant shrinkage in the guard cells closes the stomata, decreasing the rate at which water transpires through them and preventing the plant from wilting.

To survive, every living cell must constantly take in the chemicals it needs and let out the ones it does not need through its thin membrane (casing). Cells do this in several ways, including osmosis, diffusion, and active transport.

Read Also: GM Seeds: A Solution to Food Security

Osmosis Facts

  • Diffusion is when the substances that are dissolved in water or mixed in air move to even the balance.
  • Osmosis happens when the molecules of a dissolved substance are too big to slip through the cell membrane – only the water is able to move.
  • Osmosis is vital to many body processes, including the workings of the kidney and the nerves. Urine gets its water from the kidneys by osmosis.
  • In diffusion, a substance such as oxygen moves in and out of cells, while the air or water it is mixed in mainly stays put.
  • Diffusion is vital to body processes such as cellular respiration when cells take in oxygen and push out waste carbon dioxide.
  • Active transport is the way a cell uses protein-based ‘pumps’ or ‘gates’ in its membrane to draw in and hold substances that might otherwise diffuse out.
  • Active transport uses energy and is how cells draw in most of their food such as glucose.
  • When the membrane has a volume of pure water on both sides, water molecules pass in and out in each direction at exactly the same rate; there is no net flow of water through the membrane.
  • Osmosis can be explained using the concept of thermodynamic free energy: the less concentrated solution contains more free energy, so its solvent molecules will tend to diffuse to a place of lower free energy in order to equalize free energy.

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