The next time you come face to face with a mouse, take a good look at it. Isn't the mouse a sleek and beautiful little creature? Look at its bright and lively eyes. How wide awake the little mouse looks! How well formed it is! How quickly it moves!

Some insects can go without food for half a year. Others can stay under water for a week and not be harmed. Some can be frozen stiff and then be all right. One bug was known to live for a year after its head was cut off.

Canned snake meat has been sold in a few stores for a long time. Now people are beginning to buy more of it. Cattle raisers say they may begin to raise snakes as well as cattle. Who knows? You may soon be enjoying a tasty snake burger!

One of the best ways to lock a door is with a time lock. The lock is set for a certain time. It will not open before the time that has been set. It won't open when that time has passed. Banks find that time locks help keep your money safe.

There are several events that can change the Earth's surface very quickly. Volcanoes can erupt and spread lava, rock and ash for several miles. Earthquakes can leave large cracks in the Earth's surface.

Most of the world's volcanoes are part of the 'The Ring of Fire.' This is a ring of volcanoes that form a circle around the Pacific Ocean. Thousands of volcanoes make up 'The Ring of Fire.' These volcanoes formed the sea floor and many underwater mountains.

Earthquakes are caused when the plates of the Earth's crust move. Earthquakes happen along 'fault lines' in the earth’s crust. When the plates in the Earth suddenly shift, the Earth will begin to shift, shake or tremble.

Scientists can measure the intensity of an earthquake. They use an instrument called the Richter scale. The Richter scale compares the strength of different earthquakes. Earthquakes below 2.0 usually can’t be felt. Earthquakes over 5.0 on the scale can cause damage. A magnitude 7.0 is a major earthquake and can cause tremendous damage.

Floods can cause tremendous damage. They can ruin houses, roads and buildings. Floods can take down trees and cause mudslides. It often leaves mud, sand and debris behind. It can take months to clean up after a flood.

The earth's surface is constantly changing. All over the world everyday there are earthquakes, floods and volcanoes that quickly change our world. Some changes are too small to see. Others cause tremendous damage and costs millions of dollars to clean up.

The longest-lived creature in the insect world is the queen termite (ant). She has been known to live for over 50 years. During that time, the queen can lay over 30,000 eggs each day. So in her 50 years of life, it is possible for her to give birth to half a billion children. Some termite hills can be over six meters high.

For many years, all books were written by hand. Because it took so long to write one book, there were only a few of them. Most people could never own a book. Then sometime between 1450 and 1460, Johannes Gutenberg got the idea of carving separate letters and moving them to make new words. Gutenberg died at the age of 68. This was the invention of moveable type. From then on, the numbers of books printed grew quickly.

The solar system is believed to have formed, perhaps 5 billion years ago, from a spinning cloud of gas called a nebula. As this nebula contracted it began to spin faster and faster. Probably it spun off rings of planetary matter as it became more disk-like. Earth is the third planet from the Sun. These rings later contracted into planets.

Some people do not know that the whale is a mammal just like a human. Humpback whales will sometimes leap clear up out of the water, an act known as breaching. Since a humpback whale can weigh thirty tons and measure 15 meters in length, it takes an enormous amount of energy to do this.

The largest organ in the human body is the skin. One of the skin's functions is to help regulate the amount of body heat that flows in and out of the body. Heavy smoking ages skin very quickly. When it is cold, we cover the skin with extra layers of clothing to slow down the outward flow of heat. When it is hot, evaporation of sweat cools us down.

What does the prefix 'semi' mean in semiconscious?

What does the root 'hydra' mean in hydroponics or dehydrate?

What does the prefix 'post' mean in postpone?

What does the prefix 'de' mean in dehydrate?

What does the suffix 'meter' mean in barometer?

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