THE VOYAGE ON THE HMS BEAGLE

After waiting for months, I was finally on the exhilarating ride around the world. However, it didn’t take long for my spirits to descend. First of all, my cabin was called a ‘poop cabin’, which was shared with two officers who were also on board. We each had hammocks in the cabin – mine was to elevated for me to even clamber in. So, I had to clumsily and embarrassingly climb up the desk, and roll into the uncomfortable bed. Even after climbing in, my feet still wouldn’t stay inside. I decided to pull out a cupboard to use as a footrest.

After figuring out my sleeping issue, problems were still popping up. I am seasick, and on the second day, I could barely walk without staggering like I was drunk. Finally, we came up on our first stop – Cape Verde Islands.

CAPE VERDE ISLANDS
The moment I stepped off the ninety foot ship, I felt as if I had entered a whole other realm. I was fascinated by all the animal and plant life. I still continue my childhood hobby – collecting. I was putting insects and cool sea organisms in jars, and collecting all sorts of amazing plants. All this biodiversity reminded me – Captain Robert Fitzroy had provided me with a book written by Charles Lyell. His concept was that not all life was created by god – instead, he thought that the earth and its life had formed after years and years of ‘evolution’, which means adapting to new conditions and habitats throughout history. Even the earth itself was formed over a long time, out of natural processes, like volcano eruptions and asteroid collisions. I realized that this could be true. As the HMS Beagle took more stops, I took hunting trips regularly. Once, my fellow shipmates and I had cooked some armadillos. Later on, we actually found a giant armadillo skull in the water. This, to me, somewhat proved Lyell’s theory correct. These might have been the ancestors of armadillos. The armadillos must have evolved them! I thought. Finally, when I reached the Galapagos islands, the truth dawned on me. Lyell was right! I had studied Galapagos giant tortoises on each island. One night, when I was in my cabin eating turtle soup, I noticed all the turtle shells were different shaped from each other. Then I realized, each island in the Galapagos archipelago had a slightly different type of turtle! I was stunned. When I though back, I also realized that the finches had been the exact same – each island’s finch had a different beak shape! This must be because the different types of foods the finches consumed; thick beaks were for cracking nuts, and slim ones must have been for pecking and swallowing seeds and fruit. I was inspired.

CHAPTER ONE: CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLING

Hello, fellas! I am Charles Darwin. I was born in Shrewsbury, England in the year 1809. I lived in a large, spacious mansion that my wealthy family named ‘the Mount’. It had a wonderful view overlooking the small village of Shrewsbury. However, my family was devastated when my beloved mother died – and I was only 8! As a child, I was already engrossed in plants and animals. I would play with fish, climb trees, and count flowers. I also had collections of everything – pebbles, bird eggs, and stones. I also loved reading. Those were my three favorite activities.

Soon after my mother passed away, my dad sent me to Shrewsbury school, where I lived for weeks at a time. I loathed sharing the dormitory with all the other students. I also disliked attempting time after time to memorize poems. Luckily, my house was only around two kilometers away, and I could easily slink out of the school gates and go back to my dwelling. During the periods of time when I was hiding away in my house, my closest brother, Erasmus and I would remain hiding in our secret ‘experiment house’. However, my teacher eventually discovered my experimenting. Blimey, they told me my science investigations were useless! How wrong I would prove them.

COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY

My father always wanted for me to be a doctor, but I was petrified at the sight of blood, so after a few years at medical school in Edinburgh, my father transferred me to Cambridge university to study to be a minister. Many ministers back then studied nature, and soon I made friends with botanist John Stevens Henslow.

Meters, Kilometers, Miles, these are units of measurement for large things. Big things – things we can see. But there are also tiny things, those that are impossible to glimpse using the naked eye. That doesn’t mean they’re not there. So scientists have even invented measurements especially for these tiny things.

First, before we get to examples, learn what these measurements are. 1 cm = 10 mm = 10,000 micrometers = 10,000,000 nanometers. Got that down? Let’s hop into some real life examples.

#1: a pinky nail. Just as a marker, the width of your pinky finger’s nail is probably around one centimeter.

#2: An average raindrop is 2 millimeters wide in diameter. However, before it becomes a raindrop, it has to be larger than 0.5 mm. Also, if the raindrop is larger than 4 millimeters, it will get to heavy or large, and it will most likely break into two smaller raindrops. Most raindrops also contain specks of dust from outer space. These specks are normally 2 micrometers in diameter.

#3: Your hair. If you’ve ever looked at hair under a microscope, you’ll find giant pillars of hard, thick substance with grit on top. So, that sort of proves your hair isn’t THAT skinny. It’s actually 50 micrometers thick, (which is quite skinny, but not THAT skinny). Even the grit isn’t so small – 30 micrometers in diameter.

#4: A pinhead is the image of tiny. It’s really not that small. An average pinhead, because its visible, is actually 1.5 mm thick. That’s large enough so that 20,000,000 viruses can fit on it – each one 20 to 100 nanometers large.

#5: The bacteria that can make you sick so easily are actually tiny – so the imagination that your body is one army and the bacteria is the other is actually sort of right. An army of tiny bad bacteria needs to enter your body to make you sick. One of them is 5 micrometers in diameter. One of your red blood cells that defend are 6.2 – 8 micrometers in diameter and around one micrometer in thickness.

#6: an atom. The third smallest thing in existence (so far). Everything is made of atoms, so they must be small. They are small, actually. VERY small. One atom is 0.5 nanometer in diameter. That’s small enough so that 10 billion (that’s 10,000,000,000) would fit in a centimeter. That’s small enough!

Thanks for reading! -Written by EZ

ISLAND SIX: Seychelles islands are tiny islands in the western side of the Indian ocean. It is quite populated for a 455,000 square meter island – 92 thousand people inhabit the islands. Believe it or not, these islands are actually continental, consisting up of 115 islands. The first islanders arrived in the late 1700s, which was quite late.

ISLAND FIVE: Greenland. Here it is – the biggest island of all. (Probably. Let’s get something straight. Some geographers think that Australia is the largest island. But, the others who say Greenland is the largest say that Australia is a continent – therefore too large to be an island. Well, you might as well say that every single large chunk of land is an island – all of it’s surrounded by water. So, I’m going with Greenland.) Greenland is off the east coast of Canada’s islands and off the west coast of Iceland. The northernmost point of Greenland is actually connected to the North Pole. (the north pole isn’t land – its just frozen sea.) The name ‘Greenland’ is also sort of a lie. Actually, Greenland and Iceland should switch names – Greenland is actually very icy, snowy, and extremely cold. Meanwhile, although chilly, Iceland is NOT as cold as Greenland (10˚C at hottest for Greenland), and is mostly green (at least more green than Greenland) with grass. Despite the harsh environment of Greenland, however, 56K people still live there. In case you forgot from Amazing islands part I, Greenland is 2,170,000 square kilometers in area – 2,170,000,000 square meters. That’s four thousand seven hundred times the size of Seychelles.

ISLAND SIX: The Maldives. The Maldives are one of the most tourist attracting islands in the world. They are south of Sri Lanka, and are 1,800 coral islands. None of these islands are more than 2 meters off the surface – and the area of all of them combined is 298 square kilometers. The population of this archipelago, however, is 430,000 (recorded in 2017). Only 202 islands are for residents – the others are for tourists. The tourists need that many islands – 12 million come every year.

Thanks for reading! -Written by EZ

Let’s get started.

ISLAND THREE: Madagascar. Madagascar is a continental island that drifted southeastern after detaching from Africa, 135 million years ago.. It’s currently right next to Mozambique, floating around in the Indian ocean. The population there is 23.8 million people, being the fourth largest island. An animal paradise, 3/4 of life there only lives in Madagascar. All this on top of having lots of buried 16-17th century pirate loot.

ISLAND FOUR: The Galapagos islands. Like Hawaii, the Galapagos islands are a group of islands, also known as an archipelago. 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador, the Galapagos islands consist of 13 large islands, 8 moderately small islands, and 40 teeny ones. The total area is 8000 square kilometers. Although very far from land, a good quarter million people live on these islands. It’s now a world heritage site, with lots of diverse wildlife found nowhere else on the planet.

ISLAND FIVE: Japan. Another oceanic archipelago. This famous island is right on top of many, many moving crust plates, and therefore has 1500 earthquakes per year. However, despite the harsh odds, 126.9 million people live in this 377,900 square kilometer large island. That’s almost as much as Russia’s entire population. Also, Japan has the longest underwater railroad – 53.9 kilometers.

Thanks for reading! -Written by EZ

(Three more islands in the next blog)

I have already blogged quite a few times about islands, and this is another time. In this blog, I will show you statistics for different islands. Keep on reading!

First, you need to know the top ten largest islands.

#1: Greenland (2.18 million square kilometers)

#2: New Guinea (north of Australia) (821,400 square kilometers)

#3: Borneo (largest island of Indonesia) (755,000 square kilometers)

#4: Madagascar (southeast coast of Africa) (587,000 square kilometers)

#5: Baffin (island, part of Canada) (507, 450 square kilometers)

#6: Sumatra (smaller island in Indonesia) (443,000 square kilometers)

#7: Great Britain (229,900 square kilometers)

#8: Honshu (main Japanese island) (227,900 square kilometers)

#9: Victoria (another Canadian island) (217,290 square kilometers)

#10: Ellesmere (another Canadian island) (196,200 square kilometers)

Now, we can start actually showing more facts.

ISLAND ONE: Hawaii. Located in the northeastern Pacific, this oceanic island is one of the most popular and well known. That’s not surprising, considering the population of residents is already 1.36 million people. Hawaii is a chain of 132 islands – 8 large, 124 small. All of them are volcanoes, except there is quite an age difference. The oldest is 28 million, while the youngest is only 700,000.

ISLAND TWO: Krakatoa. This was never an inhabitable island – it was always rocky, dry, dusty volcano in the middle of the ocean. However, the impact this volcano caused was staggering. On August 27, 1883, this volcano blew up. The sound was so loud, people in Australia were woken up by the sound of ‘gunfire’, that was really the volcano. The eruption cause a forty meter high tsunami, killed 36,000 people and flooded more than 160 villages. The smoke and ashes dropped WORLD temperatures by one degrees celsius at least. That may not seem like much, but to drop temperatures around the world is impressive enough.

THX! -Written by EZ

There are many types of eagles in the world. When people think of eagles, they think of the Bald Eagle. However, there is one eagle that surpasses all. Do you know which ealge has 5 inch long talons? Which eagle can hunt nearly anything? What is the king of the canopy? The Harpy Eagle! The harpy is one of the world’s most successful hunting eagles, and is at the top of the food chain in the air, earning itself the title ‘king of the canopy’. It is also an extremely successful fighter. In this article, you will find out many more facts about the fascinating harpy eagle, and you will learn why I think it is the best bird of prey.

The harpy eagle is normally white and grey. It has a grey head, neck, and wings. The head, however, is slightly lighter. It has many weapons. It’s beak helps while hunting, and its wings helps it fly at fast speeds. However, it’s talons are it’s most powerful weapons. They can reach up to as long as a grizzly bear’s claws are, and is used to snatch prey in rapid speed.

The harpy eagle eats a variety of different prey. They usually eat sloths and monkeys, the occasional bird, but if they can, they take much more. Some of the other prey are deer and livestock. They even eat predators like kinkajous coatis, tayras, snakes and foxes. Most other eagles can’t take livestock or snakes. They are also one of the kings of the Amazon, dominating the canopy, it is sometimes known as king of the canopy, which is the thick layer of trees in the amazon. The Jaguar dominates the land, while the anaconda dominates the water; these are the lords of the Amazon. This leads me to rival eagles for ‘king’ of the birds. The Harpy has the largest talons of any eagle. It’ll beat the golden eagle, which is the main rival, although they only meet occasionally, because of it’s 5 inch talons. Average eagle talons are 2 inches long. However, they are not completely invincible. Sometimes, rarely, the Harpy gets hunted by the Jaguar.

This is why I think the harpy eagle is the best bird of prey. This amazing bird been at the top of the food chain for a long time, earning itself the title, ‘king of the canopy’.  It’s five inch talons make itself a formidable hunter. I hope the harpy eagle fascinated you, and I encourage you to do more research.

Written by
-Dz

So, you all know the process of washing your hands right? You wet your hands, put the soap on, the soap kills the germs, you wash the soap off. Not exactly. Read on to find out what REALLY happens when you wash your hands.

First of all, germs stay on your skin by sticking onto patches of grease. So, when you wash your hands, you are actually sort of trying to rub the grease off.

When you wet your hands at the beginning, it’s just moistening up your skin for the soap that will come later on.

When you apply soap, … (So what is soap? Soap is actually made up of giant amounts of soap molecules. These molecules have a head section, and a tail section. The head section is made of sodium, and the tail of hydrocarbons. Now, back to the process) …the soap molecules are getting spread around your greasy hands. The tail of the soap molecules stick to the grease patches, while the heads just stay moist in some water.

Finally, when you wash you hands after that, you just blow off the soap molecules. So, as the soap molecules fall, they take the grease along with them. Now you know; soap doesn’t kill ‘99%’ of your germs – it scrubs them off.

THX for reading! -Written by EZ

Bird eleven: Snail Kite. Kites are also eagle like birds of prey, but they eat different things, and therefore they have different beaks. A snail kite’s beak is much more thin. The hook a kite has at the tip of the beak is also longer and more slender, to pull snails out of their shells.

Bird twelve: A duck or goose has a flat bill with a bump near the eyes. The bump is where the nostrils are – they need to be elevated above the rest of the beak. Ducks and Geese are mainly vegetarian, but will also eat fish and fish eggs. Their bills can be used for tearing vegetation and scooping up small fish.

Bird thirteen: the weirdest of all. The flamingo’s bill is large, and looks super weird. The top half is very thin, points slightly downwards, then takes an about 30˚ downwards turn. The bottom is thicker, but similar shaped. When eating, the flamingo will partially flip its head, making the top bill on the bottom. The top jaw has filtering material that will filter out the water, keeping the fish inside. The tongue is spiked for making sure the shrimp don’t slip out.

Bird fourteen: The heron has one of my favorite bills/beaks. This beak can also be called bill, and this bill can also be called beak. It is long, skinny, and extremely sharp at the tip. The can use this sharp tip to pick up insects, or stab up fish from the waters it stands in all day. The heron’s long neck can recoil and stretch, helping it reach into the water a lightning speed.

Bird fifteen: The spoonbill also has a very unique beak. It is flat, but long and wide. The bill is narrow at the beginning, then gets larger and more round at the tip, just like a spoon. They scoop fish up from the water, and then swallow it whole.

Bird sixteen: One of the only rivals to the flamingo for weirdest beak/bill. The pelican’s bill has a giant bottom pouch that is inflatable and somewhat deflatable. The top half of a pelican bill is normally just flat and sharp at the tip, but the american white pelican has a bump right on the middle.

Thx for reading! -Written by EZ

No explanations, let’s get right into the topic. If you don’t understand what I’m writing about, read part one.

Bird six: The atlantic puffin. This puffin’s beak, more commonly called bill, is specially designed for its way of life. First, when the puffin leaves its cliff home, its bill is empty. But, as the puffin catches fish, its thick, wide, large bill starts to fill up with fish. (Not like the pelican kind, just like a mouthful of fish.) This can allow the puffin to carry up to 62 fish at once, then return to its nest.

Bird seven: The curlew. Curlews have very unique but bizarre beaks. It is very, very long, but also slim and skinny. It is curved downwards, and slightly rounded at the tip. The top half is a bit longer than the bottom, sticking out further. The Curlew’s beak is used to dig moist, underwater (in rivers and lakes) mud and catch small worms and other crustaceans that are hidden underneath.

Bird eight: Albatross and gulls have beaks like this. The upper half is curved downwards and thicker than the bottom. The tip is quite sharp. They use their beaks for catching fish, because they mostly have webbed feet. Also, on the bottom ‘jaw’, there is a red spot. Normally, chicks peck there when they are hungry, and then the adult vomits / regurgitates up the fish it ate for breakfast.

Bird nine and ten: Eagle and falcons’ beak. Eagles and falcons will tear apart anything they can catch and kill. This is often small rodents. Although they carry prey with their talons and feet, their beaks are still very useful. A falcon’s beak is slimmer and more curved than an eagle’s, but eagles’ beaks are thicker and more muscular, also for crushing.

Thanks for reading! -Written by EZ