I came across your article on a newspaper yesterday and I am writing to you about my concerns and plans regarding the decline in elephant population.
I was tremendously shocked to find the number of poor, innocent, baby elephants dying every year. We certainly can't leave them die like that. There has to be some changes and help given by humans since we are the ones who destroyed their natural habitat.
While thinking about this matter, I read the article about the work you have done and I was very pleased to meet a person with the same mind set as mine. I think what you are doing right now is a great start and more people should be aware of this.
I am planning on holding some events to raise the awareness of endangered elephants and I have been trying to get some sponsors from big companies. I was thinking if we can make a project team together to save the dying elephants. It would be a great pleasure and an honour if I can work with your team. Thank you for your time reading my letter and I will be waiting for your reply.
Researchers Find Fish That Walks the Way Land Vertebrates Do
It’s one of the most famous chapters in evolution, so familiar that it regularly inspires New Yorker cartoons: Some 375 million years ago, our ancestors emerged from the sea, evolving from swimming fish to vertebrates that walked on land.
Scientists still puzzle over exactly how the transition from sea to land took place. For the most part, they’ve had to rely on information gleaned from fossils of some of the intermediate species.
information that fossils of some of the intermediate species gleaned
But now a team of researchers has found a remarkable parallel to one of evolution’s signature events. In a cave in Thailand, they’ve discovered that a blind fish walks the way land vertebrates do.
The waterfall-climbing cave fish, Cryptotora thamicola, has even evolved many of the skeletal features that our ancestors did for walking, including a full-blown pelvis.
cave fish that can climb waterfalls
pelvis which was fully blown
“It’s really weird,” said John R. Hutchinson, a biologist at the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London who was not involved in the new study. “It’s a good example of how much fish diversity there’s left to be discovered.”
Drop an ordinary fish on the ground, and it will flop around helplessly: Its fins are adapted for pushing against water, not fighting gravity.
The early land vertebrates, known as tetrapods, evolved adaptations that enabled them to move efficiently over solid ground. A pelvis joined their hind limbs to their spines, for example. Their vertebrae grew flanges so that they interlocked, helping the spine hold itself stiff and straight even when being pulled down by gravity.
gravity pulled them down
These adaptations led tetrapods to walk in a distinctive fashion, moving their forelegs and hind legs together in a cycle. Early tetrapods probably walked much the way salamanders do today, bending their trunk from side to side as they traveled.
All tetrapods descend from a single ancestor — a single lineage of fish that managed to spread on land. Some other fishes evolved vaguely similar ways of moving around.
On coral reefs, for example, frogfish can push off surfaces with their fins. They have a gait that looks something like a slow-motion walk. But they can manage this movement only underwater.
Other fish can move on land, although none of them use a tetrapod gait to do so. Some simply squirm, while others, like mudskippers, rely on their front fins as crutches. In Hawaii, the Nopili rock-climbing goby climbs up rock faces by using its mouth as a suction cup.
goby that climbs rocks
The waterfall-climbing cave fish is leaps ahead of them, it turns out. Pale and blind, the two-inch-long fish feeds on microbes and organic matter growing on the cave walls. It was discovered in 1985, deep inside a system of caves in northern Thailand, and has been found nowhere else.
Scientists discovered it in 1985
While other fish in the caves enjoy a life in quiet pools, the waterfall-climbing cave fish clambers up slick rocks as water crashes over it.
On a recent expedition to the caves, Apinun Suvarnaraksha, a biologist at Maejo University in Thailand, and Daphne Soares, of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, came across the climber and took some grainy videos of it.
Back in New Jersey, Dr. Soares showed the videos to her colleague, Brooke E. Flammang, an expert on biomechanics.
“I was completely blown away,” Dr. Flammang said. Instead of flopping or crutching, the cave fish were using what looked like a full-blown tetrapod gait.
“These guys seemed to be very leisurely walking up the rock face,” Dr. Flammang said.
She wanted to study the fish more closely, but the species is rare and protected, and she could not bring any of them into her lab.
needs protections
Dr. Suvarnaraksha did the next best thing. In a Thai museum collection, he found one of the few preserved specimens of the fish. He took it to a dental school and used a high-resolution CT scanner to make images of the fish.
specimens of the fish that is preserved
After Dr. Suvarnaraksha emailed the images to Dr. Flammang, she was able to line up the images together to reconstruct the fish’s three-dimensional anatomy.
In many ways, the skeleton of the fish looked like what you’d see on a walking tetrapod. “I literally thought someone was playing a trick on me,” she said.
In typical fish, the pelvis is just a pair of small bones floating in the body wall. Fish use the bones only to stabilize their pelvic fins, so that they can stop themselves from rolling over.
In the waterfall-climbing cave fish, on the other hand, the pelvis is a complex of bones that is fused to the spine by elongated ribs. It’s the same arrangement that tetrapods evolved, allowing them to hold themselves up with their hind legs.
ribs that are elongated
Typical fish also have small vertebrae that don’t overlap, allowing them to bend their bodies as they swim. But the waterfall-climbing cave fish has the same overlapping growths on their vertebrae that stiffen the spine in tetrapods.
“Functionally, it makes perfect sense, but to see it in a fish is incredibly wild,” Dr. Flammang said.
In Thailand, Dr. Suvarnaraksha then went back to the caves with a video camera. He scooped two of the fish into an aquarium and made videos of them walking at different angles.
When Dr. Flammang and her colleagues analyzed the images, they confirmed their initial hunch: The fish were using their tetrapod-like bodies to walk with a tetrapod-like gait. It most closely resembles that of a salamander.
The researchers published their study on Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.
Dr. Flammang said that the waterfall-climbing cave fish eventually might give scientists hints about how fish originally arrived on land. “The physics are the same,” she said.
Scientists have found trackways in Poland dating back almost 400 million years that look as if they were made by a walking tetrapod. But the oldest tetrapod fossils found so far date only to 375 million years.
walking tetrapod made them
It’s possible that a fish, rather than a primitive tetrapod, made those tracks by moving as the waterfall-climbing cave fish does today.
“We see these footprints in a fish today, doing something very unfishlike,” Dr. Flammang said.
Ph
Friday, 11 March 2016
Dear Johnny,
I'm sorry I haven't written you for ages. I was too busy with my school exams. I just finished my exams and I wanted to tell you that I want to invite you for my school party next month! It's on the 18th of April which is the second Tuesday next week.
I promise you it's going to be fun. All of my classmates are attending this prom and it's one of my last events in high school, so it would be really thankful if you can come! You know most of my friends and I'm sure even those people who you don't know will be your friend by the end of this party. There's going to be loud music which you can dance too, good food, good people and you'll be surprised to hear the main aim of this event! We're holding this to raise awareness of the endangered animals and we'll be having games related to this problem.
All the money received from tickets to this party will be donated to the animal sanctuary in Sabah where they sponsor orang-utans, tigers, turtles and birds which are in danger of being extinct. Isn't this great? Having fun, at the same time, helping those animals in need of help! I'm sure you have always wanted to help but you didn't know how and where to go, so this is the perfect chance for you!
You will never regret coming for this party and this is going to be one of the best parties you've ever been to. I'll be waiting for your positive reply! Once again, I guarantee that it's going to be a splash of fun!
With lots of love,
Ye Un
Kung Fu Panda 3
The main character which is the panda is very enthusiastic and active and this is shown by the way he acts and how he is very interested in Kung fu, although he is forced to train by his master. He is eager to improve his kung fu skills as he tries hard to please his master. He is really desperate to find his father as he calls everyone he sees that looks like him. I could spot the disappointment in him when he found out that the other panda who really looks like his father wasn’t his father.
London has fallen
I can see the suspense in the movie by looking at the scenes changing quickly. It’s really thrilling as there are lots of gunshots and the filming effect of focusing on the character and blurring the rest makes the tension even more intense. The body guard is really trying his best to save the president of USA from the terrorists by risking his life. I think the president will be safe and there won’t be any harm done to him as most of the movies are happy ending.
Conjuring2
I can feel the fear even before actually watching the movie because of the narration behind the scenes. The ticking sound of the ticker tape makes the viewers scared. The darkness makes a gloomy atmosphere and camera zooming in causes tension to be more intense. Caption written at the end of the trailer saying it’s based on a real story terrifies the viewers.
Captain America: Civil War
First scene starts with someone being trapped which makes the viewers curious. Heavy actions and bombing makes the movie more intense and a scene of one character jumping from a high building is breathtaking. When the fighting starts, I can’t wait for the movie to be released as I don’t want any of my favourite characters to die. The fact that Iron Man and Captain America are going against each other makes me wonder why because they’re in the same team for Avengers.
Zootopia
The characters are so cute and it’s interesting how they all have their own doors which are in different sizes. They are so adorable and it’s funny as well as it uses the stereotypical idea of most people that sloth are really slow and lazy. The film is very bright and lively. One part where the animals don’t let go of each other even when they’re all in danger is very touching and it makes me want to go and watch this film.
Finding Dory
The trailer starts with calming sea with peaceful music and Dory starts 'sleep swimming' this helps the viewers predict something dangerous will happen because Dory won't know where she's going or what she's doing while sleeping. In the next scene, Dory doesn't remember anything she has done and she keeps on forgetting stuff. This makes me wonder how she's going to overcome that problem.
Now You See Me 2
It's a short trailer but it shows most of the characters appearing in the film. Since it's a sequel to the previous film, it keeps mentioning that they are back meaning they have been recognised before. It gives a tone that the film will be as good as the previous one. It shows the tension and makes the viewers get more curious.
Allegiant I had high expectations as the previous movie was excellent. I was worried it wouldn't reach up to my expectations, but as I entered the cinema and watched the first 10 mins of this movie, I realised that was a useless worry. It is the best Divergent series so far and the chemistry between characters have improved and this makes the quality of this movie higher. I can't wait to watch the next one which is going to be released next year.
