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Fascinating Facts About Butterflies:

People love watching colorful butterflies float from flower to flower. From the tiniest blues to the largest swallowtails, how much do you really know about these insects? Here are 10 fascinating facts about butterflies.

1. Butterfly wings are transparent

How can that be? We know butterflies as perhaps the most colorful, vibrant insects around! A butterfly's wings are covered by thousands of tiny scales, and these scales reflect light in different colors.

But underneath all of those scales, a butterfly wing is actually formed by layers of chitin, the same protein that makes up an insect's exoskeleton. These layers are so thin you can see right through them. As butterfly ages, scales fall off the wings, leaving spots of transparency where the chitin layer is exposed.

2. Butterflies taste with their feet

Butterflies have taste receptors on their feet to help them find their host plants and locate food. A female butterfly lands on different plants, drumming the leaves with her feet until the plant releases its juices. Spines on the back of her legs have chemoreceptors that detect the right match of plant chemicals. When she identified the right plant, she lays her eggs. A butterfly will also step on its food, using organs that sense dissolved sugars to taste food sources like fermenting fruit.

3. Butterflies live on an all-liquid diet

Speaking of butterflies eating, adult butterflies can only feed on liquids, usually nectar.

Their mouthparts are modified to enable them to drink, but they can't chew solids. A proboscis, which functions as a drinking straw, stays curled up under the butterfly's chin until it finds a source of nectar or other liquid nutrition. It then unfurls the long, tubular structure and sips up a meal.

A few butterflies feed on sap, and some even resort to sipping from decaying carrion. No matter the meal, they suck it up a straw.

4. A butterfly must assemble its proboscis as soon as it emerges from the chrysalis

A butterfly that can't drink nectar is doomed. One of its first jobs as an adult butterfly is to assemble its mouthparts. When a new adult emerges from the pupal case or chrysalis, its mouth is in two pieces. Using palpi located adjacent to the proboscis, the butterfly begins working the two parts together to form a single, tubular proboscis. You may see a newly emerged butterfly curling and uncurling the proboscis over and over, testing it out.

5. Butterflies drink from mud puddles

A butterfly cannot live on sugar alone; it needs minerals, too. To supplement its diet of nectar, a butterfly will occasionally sip from mud puddles, which are rich in minerals and salts. This behavior, called puddling, occurs more often in male butterflies, which incorporate the minerals into their sperm. These nutrients are then transferred to the female during mating, and help improve the viability of her eggs.

6. Butterflies can't fly if they're cold

Butterflies need an ideal body temperature of about 85ºF to fly.

Since they're cold-blooded animals, they can't regulate their own body temperatures. The surrounding air temperature has a big impact on their ability to function. If the air temperature falls below 55ºF, butterflies are rendered immobile, unable to flee from predators or feed. When air temperatures range between 82º-100ºF, butterflies can fly with ease. Cooler days require a butterfly to warm up its flight muscles, either be shivering or basking in the sun. And even sun-loving butterflies can get overheated when temperatures soar above 100° F and may seek shade to cool down. 

7. A newly emerged butterfly can't fly

Inside the chrysalis, a developing butterfly waits to emerge with its wings collapsed around its body. When it finally breaks free of the pupal case, it greets the world with tiny, shriveled wings.

The butterfly must immediately pump body fluid through its wing veins to expand them. Once its wings reach full-size, the butterfly must rest for a few hours to allow its body to dry and harden before it can take its first flight.

8. Butterflies live just a few weeks, usually

Once it emerges from its chrysalis as an adult, a butterfly has only 2-4 short weeks to live, in most cases. During that time, it focuses all its energy on two tasks – eating and mating. Some of the smallest butterflies, the blues, may only survive a few days. Butterflies that overwinter as adults, like monarchs and mourning cloaks, can live as long as 9 months.

9. Butterflies are nearsighted, but they can see and discriminate a lot of colors

Within about 10-12 feet, butterfly eyesight is quite good. Anything beyond that distance gets a little blurry to a butterfly, though. Butterflies rely on their eyesight for vital tasks, like finding mates of the same species and finding flowers on which to feed. In addition to seeing some of the colors we can see, butterflies can see a range of ultraviolet colors invisible to the human eye. The butterflies themselves may have ultraviolet markings on their wings to help them identify one another and locate potential mates. Flowers, too, display ultraviolet markings that act as traffic signals to incoming pollinators like butterflies – "pollinate me!"

10. Butterflies employ all kinds of tricks to keep from being eaten

Butterflies rank pretty low on the food chain, with lots of hungry predators happy to make a meal of them.

Some butterflies fold their wings to blend into the background, using camouflage to render themselves all but invisible to predators. Others try the opposite strategy, wearing vibrant colors and patterns that boldly announce their presence. Bright colored insects often pack a toxic punch if eaten, so predators learn to avoid them. Some butterflies aren't toxic at all, but pattern themselves after other species known for their toxicity. By mimicking their foul-tasting cousins, they repel predators.

Switch between straight and curly quotes and apostrophes:

To present a professional appearance in print or to meet the style guidelines of a client, you may want to use true typographer quotation marks and apostrophes in your desktop publishing documents. These true quotation and apostrophe marks are curled left and right, unlike the straight-as-a-stick single and double quote mark show on a keyboard's apostrophe key. 

There are several ways to access and properly use curly quotation marks, also called smart quotes and proper apostrophes on a Mac or Windows PC.

How to Access Smart Quotes

Many software programs, including Microsoft Word, have settings you can use to enable or disable straight quotes or smart (curly) quotes automatically as you type. If you do not have that option in your software, you can make the change as you type. Below are the ways you can access smart quotes on a Windows PC, Mac, and in HTML.

Make Smart Quotes on Windows PC

To toggle the enable or disable the feature in Microsoft Word for Windows:

1. Click the File tab.
2. Select Options.
3. Click Proofing in the left pane.
4. Click AutoCorrect Options.
5. Select the AutoFormat tab.
6. Check or uncheck the box in front of Straight quotes with smart quotes to toggle automatic smart quote replacement off and on.

To manually select smart quotes, your keyboard must have a numeric keypad. "Num lock" must be activated. To use the numeric codes, hold down the alt key and type the four-digit character code on your numeric keypad.

• Use ALT+0145 and ALT+0146 for the left and right single quotation mark or apostrophe, respectively. 
• Use ALT+0147 and ALT+0148 for the left and right double quotation marks, respectively.

Make sure you use the numeric keypad and not the row of numbers above the alphabet, the row of numbers will not work.

Create Smart Quotes on Mac

To toggle the smart quotes feature on a Mac in Word:

• Go to the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect, and then select the AutoFormat as You Type tab. 
• Select the checkbox for Automatically correct spelling and formatting as you type. 
• Under Replace as you type, select or clear the Straight quotation marks with smart quotation marks check box.

To manually select smart quotes, type the following keys simultaneously.

• Type Option+] and Shift+Option+] for the left (open) and right (closed) single quote mark or apostrophe, respectively.
• Type Option+[ and Shift+Option+[ for the left and right curved double quotation marks, respectively.

Add Smart Quotes to Web Pages

Web typography works a little differently. Smart quotes do not always work well on the web, so straight quotes are used a lot.

However, if you want to add curly quotes to HTML code, do the following:

• For the character for the curly single opening quote mark (or apostrophe) ‘ and ’, use ‘ and ’, respectively.
• For the character of the curly opening and closing double quotation marks, “ and  ’, use “ and ”, respectively.

Commonly, in current web design and print publishing, oversized curly quotes can be used to add interest to pull-quotes in articles or general information pages.

More About That Straight Apostrophe Key

Straight quotes come to us from the popularization of the type­writer. In tra­di­tional print­ing and typesetting, all quo­ta­tion marks were curly. But type­writer char­ac­ter sets were lim­ited by me­chan­i­cal con­straints and phys­i­cal space.

By re­plac­ing the curly open­ing and clos­ing quotes with am­bidex­trous straight quotes, two slots be­came avail­able for other characters.

The straight marks on the apostrophe key are also called primes. You can use the single straight mark for feet and minutes and the double mark for inches and seconds, as in 1'6" for 1 foot, 6 inches or 30'15" for 30 minutes, 15 seconds.

The Sinking of Venice:

Venice, the historic Italian town known as "The Queen of the Adriatic", is on the brink of collapse, both physically and socially.  The city, which is made up of 118 small islands is sinking at an average rate of 1 to 2 millimeters per year, and its population had decreased by more than half since the mid 20th century. 

The Sinking of Venice

For the past century, the famous "Floating City" has consistently, year-after-year subsided, due to natural processes and the constant extraction of water from below ground.

Although this alarming occurrence was believed to have halted, recent studies published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, a journal of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), found that not only is Venice sinking again, but the city is also tilting eastward. 

This, in conjunction with the Adriatic rising in the Venetian Lagoon at approximately the same rate, has resulted in an average yearly increase of sea levels by 4mm (0.16 inches).  The study, which used a combination of GPS and satellite radar to map Venice, found that the northern part of the city is dropping at a rate of 2 to 3 millimeters (.008 to 0.12 inches), and the southern part is sinking at 3 to 4 millimeters (0.12 to 0.16 inches) per year.

This trend is expected to continue long into the future as natural tectonic processes are slowly pushing the city's foundation under Italy's Apennine Mountains.  Within the next two decades, Venice could subside as much as 80mms (3.2 inches).

To the locals, floods are commonplace in Venice.  Approximately four to five times a year, residents have to walk on wooden planks in order to stay above the floodwaters in large open areas such as Piazza San Marco.

To constrain these floods, a new multi-billion euro system of barriers is being constructed.

Titled the MOSE (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico) Project, this integrated system consists of rows of mobiles gates installed at three of the city's inlets that are able to temporarily isolate the Venetian Lagoon from rising tides.  It is designed to protect Venice from tides as high as almost 10 feet.  Local researchers are also currently working on a system aimed at potentially uplifting Venice by pumping seawater into the city's subsoil.  

Population Decline of Venice

In the 1500's, Venice was one of the most populated cities in the world.  After World War II, the city housed over 175,000 residents.  Today, native Venetians only number in the mid-50,000's.  This massive exodus is rooted in high property taxes, the high cost of living, aging population, and overwhelming tourism.  

Geographic isolation is a major problem for Venice.  With no cars, everything must be brought in and out (garbage) by boat.  Groceries are a third more costly than in the landlocked suburbs nearby.  In addition, the cost of property has tripled from a decade ago and many Venetians have relocated to nearby towns in the mainland likes Mestre, Treviso, or Padova, where homes, food, and utilities cost a quarter of what they do in Venice.

Moreover, due to the nature of the city, with its high humidity and rising waters, homes require constant maintenance and improvements.  The dramatic inflation in housing prices in the City of Canals is stimulated by wealthy foreigners, who are buying up property to satisfying the idealized romance they have with Venetian living.

Now, the only people who occupy homes here are the rich or elderly who inherited property.  The young are leaving.  Quickly.  Today, 25% of the population is over the age of 64.  The latest council estimate is that the rate of decline will increase to as much as 2,500 a year.  This decline, of course, will be offset by incoming foreigners, but for native Venetians, they are quickly becoming an endangered species.

Tourism Is Ruining Venice

Tourism also contributes to the massive increase in the cost of living and the population exodus.

Taxes are high because Venice requires an enormous amount of maintenance, from the cleaning of canals to the restoration of buildings, disposal of waste, and the raising of a foundation. 

A 1999 law that eased regulations on the conversion of residential buildings to tourist accommodations also exacerbated the ongoing housing shortage.  Since then, the number of hotels and guesthouses has increased by more than 600 percent.

For the locals, living in Venice has become quite a cluster.  It is nearly impossible now to get from one part of town to another without encountering hordes of tourists.  Over 20 million people flock to Venice each year, with an average of 55,000-60,000 visitors per day.  To make matters worse, these figures are expected to increase further as travelers with disposable incomes from burgeoning economies like China, India, and Brazil are starting to navigate their way here.  

Increased regulations on tourism will unlikely happen in the foreseeable future since the industry generates over €2 billion a year, not including the informal economy.  The cruise ship industry alone brings in an estimated €150 million annually from its 2 million passengers.  Together with the cruise lines themselves purchasing supplies from local contractors, they represent 20 percent of the city's economy. 

In the last 15 years, cruise ship traffic to the Venice has increased 440 percent, from 200 ships in 1997 to over 655 today.  Unfortunately, as more ships arrive, more Venetians are leaving, as critics claim they churn up mud and silt, emit air pollution, degrade local structures, and are converting the entire economy into a tourism-based industry, with no other forms of employment available.

At its current rate of population decline, by the mid-21st century, there will be no more native Venetians left in Venice.  The city, which once ruled an empire, will essentially become an amusement park.

Exactly..!!

I feel the same too..!!

How to Disinfect Rainwater for Drinking?

You can usually drink rain straight from the sky, but if you're collecting and storing it, you'll want to disinfect rainwater for drinking and cleaning. Fortunately, there are simple disinfection methods to use, whether you have power or not. This is handy information to know in case you're stuck after a storm without water or you're out camping. The same techniques can be used to prepare snow for drinking, too.

Quick Methods to Disinfect Water

Boiling - Reduce pathogens by boiling water for 1 minute at a rolling boil or 3 minutes if you're at an altitude greater than 2,000 meters (6,562 feet). The longer boiling time at high altitude is because water boils at a lower temperature. The recommended duration comes from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). If you store freshly boiled water in sterile containers (which can be boiled) and seal them, the water will remain safe indefinitely.

Bleach - For disinfection, add 2.3 fluid ounces of household bleach (sodium hypochlorite in water) per 1,000 gallons of water (in other words, for a small volume of water, a splash of bleach is more than sufficient). Allow 30 minutes for the chemicals to react. It may seem obvious, but use unscented bleach since the scented sort includes perfumes and other undesirable chemicals. Bleach dosage is not a hard-and-fast rule because its effectiveness depends on the temperature of the water and pH.

Also, be aware that bleach may react with chemicals in the water to produce toxic gases (mostly a concern with turbid or cloudy water). It's not ideal to add bleach to water and immediately seal it in containers — it's better to wait for any fumes to dissipate. Although drinking straight bleach is dangerous, the small concentration used to disinfect water isn't likely to cause problems.

Bleach dissipates within 24 hours.

Why Would You Disinfect Rainwater?

The point of disinfection is to remove disease-causing microbes, which include bacteria, algae, and fungi. Rain generally doesn't contain any more microbes than any other drinking water (it's often cleaner than groundwater or surface water), so it's usually fine to drink or use for other purposes. If the water falls into a clean cistern or bucket, it's still fine. In fact, most people who collect rainwater use it without applying any treatment. Microbial contamination of rain is less of a threat than toxins that might be in the water from surfaces it touched. However, those toxins require filtration or special treatment. What we're talking about here is pure rain. Technically, you don't have to disinfect it, but most public agencies recommend taking the extra precaution to prevent illness.

Ways to Disinfect Water

There are four broad categories of disinfection methods: heat, filtration, irradiation, and chemical methods.

• Boiling water is an excellent method, but obviously, it only helps if you have a heat source. Boiling water can kill some pathogens, but it does not remove heavy metals, nitrate, pesticides, or other chemical contamination.

• Chlorine, iodine, and ozone are most often used for chemical disinfection. Chlorination can leave potentially toxic by-products, plus it doesn't kill all cysts or viruses. Iodination is effective but leaves an unpleasant taste. Use of iodine is not recommended when preparing water for pregnant women or people with thyroid problems. Adding ozone is effective, but not widely available.
• Irradiation is accomplished using an ultraviolet light or exposure to strong sunlight. UV light kills bacteria and viruses but doesn't kill all the algae or cysts of pathogenic organisms. Sunlight is effective if the water is sufficiently clear, the light is bright enough, and the water is exposed to light long enough. There are too many variables to give firm recommendations on the use of this method.
• Microfiltration effectiveness depends on the pore size of the filter. The smaller the pore size, the better the filtration, but it's also slower. This technique removes all pathogens.

Other techniques are becoming more widespread, including electrolysis, nano-alumina filtration, and LED irradiation.

Inspiring Words by Someone:

Anyone can be disappointed;

But to see failure, and not be affected by it, is special.

Anyone can flash money, possessions, and title;

But to possess everything, and yet not feel entitled to it, is special.

Anyone can handle praise;

But to handle criticism with equilibrium is special.

Anyone can blow their own trumpet;

But to be able, knowledgeable, and experienced, and yet remain humble, is special.

Anyone can raise their voice;

But to feel frustration, anger, agony, righteousness, pain, and betrayal, and yet be unchanged by it, is special.

Anyone can take the easier path;

But to take the right path irrespective of its appeal is special.

One is not special for what one has, what one says, or what one is;

One is made special by what one does.