"Living things resurrect from the dead;
others have self-healing power."
Dr Abe V Rotor
Photographs by Matthew Marlo R Rotor
Raptors like eagles and hawks are choosy of their food - only live and healthy preys, and often specific ones - to avoid poison and pathogens that might harm them.
Starfish can regenerate a lost arm, or develop into two organisms, or more, if cut through the center.
The skink (photo), gecko lizard and house lizard have tails that detach from the body in extreme danger and during assault by their enemy. The detached tail wiggles vigorously attracting the attacker, while the tailless survivor stealthily goes into hiding. A new tail will regenerate in a few weeks.
Green pond frog produces antibiotic substance that enhances its amphibian life.
This catfish buries itself in mud and remains encrusted throughout the dry months, then when rain comes, it frees itself and resumes normal activity.
This green snake goes into aestivation in summer or hibernation in winter, as it may be the case, so that people often believe they resurrect from the dead. Others believe that they just come out from spontaneous generation.Dr Abe V Rotor
They tell us of the magic of lizards growing new tails, crabs regaining lost claws, starfish arising from body pieces. How can we explain the mystery behind these stories?
The biological phenomenon behind these stories is called regeneration. The male deer grows a new set of anthers each year; sea squirts and hydras are produced from tiny buds; the same way plants grow from cuttings. New worms may regenerate from just pieces of the body; and some fish can sprout new fins to replace the ones that have been bitten off.
Experiments demonstrated that the forelimb of a salamander severed midway between the elbow and the wrist, can actually grow into a new one exactly the same as the lost parts. The stump re-forms the missing forelimb, wrist, and digits within a few months. In biology this is called redifferentiation, which means that the new tissues are capable of reproducing the actual structure and attendant function of the original tissues.
Curious the kid I was, I examined a twitching piece of tail, without any trace of its owner. I was puzzled at what I saw. My father explained how the lizard, a skink or bubuli, escaped its would-be predator by leaving its tail twitching to attract its enemy, while its tailless body stealthily went into hiding. “It will grow a new tail,” father assured me. I have also witnessed tailless house lizards (butiki) growing back their tails at various stages, feeding on insects around a ceiling lamp. During the regeneration period these house lizards were not as agile as those were with normal tails, which led me to conclude how important the tail is.
Regeneration is a survival mechanism of many organisms. Even if you have successfully subdued a live crab you might end up holding only its pincers and the canny creature has gone back into the water. This is true also to grasshoppers; they escape by pulling away from their captors, leaving their large trapped hind legs behind. But soon, like their crustacean relatives, new appendages will start growing to replace the lost ones.
Another kind of regeneration is compensatory hypertrophy, a kind of temporary growth response that occurs in such organs as the liver and kidney when they are damaged. If a surgeon removes up to 70 percent of a diseased liver, the remaining liver tissues undergo rapid mitosis (multiplication of cells) until almost the original liver mass is restored. Similarly, if one kidney is removed, the other enlarges greatly to compensate for its lost partner.
Read for the baby in the womb so that he will be intelligent. Sing to him and he will be good in music.
Child development starts in the womb. In the various stages of embryonic development, the brain absorbs early information that are built into impressions carried by the child as he grows and may persist to adulthood.
Mothers talk to their baby in the womb. Kind words, classical music, happy disposition are important in building healthy impressions. On the other hand, violence, sorrow, fear, and indifference have negative effects to the development of the child.
To get better harvest, furrows must be parallel with the sun’s movement.
Actually this principle of arranging the rows of plants on an east-to-west orientation allows better and longer sunlight exposure, thus enhancing photosynthesis. There is less overshadowing among plants compared to north-to-south direction, especially when inter cropping is practiced (e.g. corn with peanut, sugarcane with mungbeans, and coconut and coffee).
To prevent glass from breaking, first put a spoon before pouring hot water.
Sudden heat may cause glass to break. To cushion this effect, the spoon absorbs heat faster, in fact it attains higher temperature than glass or porcelain (china) does.
This principle is also applied when cooking meat. Meat becomes tender in a shorter time by putting spoon or fork in the cooking pot. Metal absorbs more heat that elevates the temperature of boiling water, which normally remains at 100 degrees centigrade (Celsius).
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