CHAMELEONS - THE COOLEST ONES!!!

Chameleons are one of the five coolest species in the world. Any animal that can change colours and look in two directions at once is worth learning more about.They're wicked awesome for a number of reasons: their funny, little two-toed feet, their uber-mobile eye cups, their super curly tails and their other exciting physical embellishments. What's probably best about them, though, is their polychromatic flare.

CHAMELEON-THE COLOUR CHANGE SPECIALISTS

Chameleons are famous for their quick color-changing abilities, that, unlike what many people believe, usually don't have a thing to do with blending into their surroundings. If they need to visually merge into the background, they can just stick with their normal coloration.

 In fact, chameleons mostly change color to regulate their temperatures or to signal their intentions to other chameleons.

Since chameleons can’t generate their own body heat, changing the color of their skin is a way to maintain a favorable body temperature. A cold chameleon may become dark to absorb more heat, whereas a hotter chameleon may turn pale to reflect the sun’s heat.

Chameleons will also use bold color changes to communicate. Males become bright to signal their dominance and turn dark in aggressive encounters. Females can let males know if they’re willing to mate by changing the color of their skin. 

 THE COLOUR CHANGE MECHANISM 

So how do they pull off these colorful changes? The outermost layer of the chameleon’s skin is transparent. Beneath this are several more layers of skin that contain specialized cells called chromatophores. The chromatophores at each level are filled with sacs of different kinds of pigment. The deepest layer contains melanophores, which are filled with brown melanin (the same pigment that gives human skin its many shades). Atop that layer are cells called iridophores, which have a blue pigment that reflects blue and white light. Layered on top of those cells are the xanthophores and erythrophores, which contain yellow and red pigments, respectively.

But when a chameleon experiences changes in body temperature or mood, its nervous system tells specific chromatophores to expand or contract. This changes the color of the cell. By varying the activity of the different chromatophores in all the layers of the skin, the chameleon can produce a whole variety of colors and patterns.

For instance, an excited chameleon might turn red by fully expanding all his erythrophores, blocking out the other colors beneath them. A calm chameleon, on the other hand, might turn green by contracting his erythrophores and allowing some of the blue-reflected light from his iridophores to mix with his layer of somewhat contracted yellow xanthophores.

With these layers of cells, some chameleons are capable of producing a dazzling array of reds, pinks, yellows, blues, greens, and browns. These bold statements won’t help them blend into the background, but they will allow them to get their message across to other chameleons loud and clear.

 MADAGASCAR- CHAMELEON'S HOME!!

Almost half of the world’s chameleon species live on the island of Madagascar, with 59 different species existing nowhere outside of the island. There are approximately 160 species of chameleon. They range from Africa to southern Europe, and across south Asia to Sri Lanka. They have also been introduced into the United States in places such as Hawaii, California and Florida. 

THE ALL SEEING EYES OF THE CHAMELEON 

Chameleon eyes have a 360-degree arc of vision and can see two directions at once. Chameleons have the most distinctive eyes of any reptile. Their upper and lower eyelids are joined, with only a pinhole large enough for the pupil to see through. They can rotate and focus separately to observe two different objects simultaneously, which lets their eyes move independently from each other.Chameleons have very good eyesight for reptiles, letting them see small insects from a long (5–10 m) distance. 

Chameleons can see in both visible and ultraviolet light. Chameleons exposed to ultraviolet light show increased social behaviour and activity levels and are more inclined to bask and feed. They are also more likely to reproduce as it has a positive effect on the pineal gland.

 CHAMELEON'S TONGUE-FAST AS LIGHTNING

Chameleons have ballistic tongues that are 1.5-2 times the length of their body. Chameleons feed by ballistically projecting their long tongue from their mouth to capture prey located some distance away.The chameleon’s tongue is typically thought to be 1.5 to 2 times the length of their body (their length excluding the tail). Tongue projection occurs at extremely high performance, reaching the prey in as little as 0.07 seconds, having been launched at accelerations exceeding 41 g. The chameleon tongue’s tip is a bulbous ball of muscle, and as it hits its prey it rapidly forms a small suction cup. 

AS EARLESS AS A SNAKE??

Chameleons can’t hear much. Like snakes, chameleons do not have an outer or a middle ear so there is neither an ear opening nor an eardrum. However, chameleons are not deaf. They can detect sound frequencies in the range 200–600 Hz. 

HAPPY FEET

The feet of chameleons are highly adapted to movement in trees (arboreal locomotion). On each foot there are five clearly distinguished toes that are grouped into a flattened section of either two or three toes, giving each foot a tongs-like appearance. On the front feet the outer group contains two toes, whereas the inner group contains three. On the rear feet this arrangement is reversed. These specialized feet allow chameleons to grip tightly onto narrow or rough branches. Each toe is also equipped with a sharp claw to help grip on surfaces when climbing.

The chameleons really are the coolest creatures, and have a beauty that makes our eyes open up with wonder!

This may not have hit your radar when it happened, and even if it did, you might not have given it a second thought. But we did, my friend, we did. In 2005, the Spitzer Space Telescope (launched in 2003) beamed back conclusive proof that the Milky Way isn't the simple spiral galaxyyou've seen illustrated your whole life. It's really a barred spiral galaxy. So instead of elegant arms coiling out from a central sphere, there's a big fat bar across the middle, and the arms of our galaxy sprout from either end.

Now, scientists had been debating this possibility and trying to come up with decisive proof one way or the other for years. And when they did – not much happened. Some mainstream news outlets gave it a little airtime, and the astronomy community talked it up for a while. Once the space devotees all knew about it, everyone else continued on in blissful ignorance, not knowing they were imagining the galaxy they lived in all wrong.

From geography to physiology, there are many examples of people collectively doing it wrong by learning fiction as truth. Here are 10 of the biggest errors walking around masquerading as well-known facts.

Pictured: Mount Everest. (Pipsqueak!)

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Mount Everest is one whopping big mountain, but is it the tallest in the world? In fact it is not. A mountain is highest in regard to how far it soars above sea level. But technically it is tallest from base to summit. And Mauna Kea kills it at being the tallest.

Here's the deets: Above sea level, Mauna Kea (in Hawaii) is only 13,799 feet (4,206 meters). But when you count the crazy enormous portion of it that's underwater, it's 33,465 feet tall (10,200 meters). Everest, that snobby little upstart, is only 29,029 feet (8,848 meters) above sea level, with none of it below sea level [source: Mitchinson and Lloyd].

But the shame doesn't end there. Mount Kilimanjaro hasn't taken the stand yet. Kilimanjaro is 19,340 feet (5,895 meters) top to bottom. So it's not as tall as Everest – but Everest is surrounded by the rest of its friends, the Himalayas, all of which are collectively growing by a quarter of an inch per year and pushing Everest's summit higher. Kilimanjaro, on the other hand, is solitary, rising out from the relative flatness of Tanzania all on its dramatically striking own [source: Mitchinson and Lloyd].

Look at my cool hat! It is keeping my head warm. Sort of like my clothes are keeping my rest of me warm.

Jodie Coston/Photodisc/Getty Images

You lose most of your body heat through your head because there are so many blood vessels in your scalp. Or because there's not a lot of fat between your scalp and your skull. Or because there's a lot of circulation keeping your brain warm. Or something. At least, that's what we've all heard. That's why you need to wear a hat in the winter: Otherwise you'll catch cold.

But, the sad truth is, you lose just as much heat per square inch through your head as you do through the rest of the body, a fact that would become abundantly clear if you ever tried to scrape the frost off your windshield while naked. (We don't recommend trying that experiment.)

So if you're out on a wintry day and you notice that your head seems to be particularly cold compared to the rest of your body, it's probably because your head is bare, and everything else is sensibly bundled up. Putting on a hat will fix that problem.

It's less likely to keep you from catching a cold, though.

THE VIEW FROM THE SPACE STATION

So what can astronauts see out the windows of the space station? Quite a bit, actually. Cities light up like spiderwebs at night, of course, but even during the day lots of stuff is visible. Bridges, dams, airports and major highways are among the structures seen by spacemen as they shoot across the sky, far above the pitiful, land-bound mortals on Earth.

The Great Wall of China gets a double whammy on this myth. You can see other man-made objects from space (especially when the part of the Earth being viewed is awash in the artificially illuminated glow of nighttime). It's also pretty hard to pick out the Great Wall of China from any space-based locale. In low-Earth orbit, it's next to impossible to see it with the naked eye. Even with a fairly hefty camera lens, it's still challenging to tell if you're looking at the Great Wall or not.

There are a couple of reasons this pseudo-fact is so far-flung. For one, its history dates back to well before the Space Age, so no one knew enough to nip it in the bud straight off. And for another, the Great Wall of China is, well, a giant wall. Being hundreds of miles long, it's understandable people would assume it sticks out like a sore thumb from space.

Yes, the Great Wall of China is very, very long. It's also built from rocks collected from all over the local landscape – in other words, ones that are usually the same color as the wall itself. So unless China decides to give the wall a makeover and paint it hot pink, it's going to remain fairly hard to spot from space.

You may have lived for field trips as a kid, looking forward to a whole day of out-of-school fun and exploring. That is, until you got started on a tour of some musty building that seemed, well, boring. Not even the tour guide's explanation of how the glass in the wavy, uneven windowpanes has slowly flowed downward over time could keep your attention.

Liquid windowpanes? No.

Rather than the (magical-sounding) slow drip of centuries, the reason old glass windows aren't perfectly even and clear is because of how they were made. Until the early-mid 1800s, most window glass was made using a process called the crown method. The glass was blown, flattened, heated and spun, yielding a sheet that was relatively cheap to produce. It was also rippled and thicker in some places than in others.

In other words, the windows looked that way when they were installed, and they look that way now. No downhill liquid flow is involved. (And if you're really wondering: Glass is an amorphous solid. Learn more about it in "What makes glass transparent?")

NESTLINGS NEED A LITTLE HELPING HAND

If the baby bird you encounter is rather fuzzy or has no feathers at all, a little intervention is called for. Scoop it back up into its nest. Mom and Dad won't care (or likely even notice) if their offspring has a little eau de human on it. Read more inHow to Rescue a Baby Bird.

You're out in the yard and you see a distressing sight – a baby bird is floundering around on the ground, looking like it's desperate to get in the air, but it can't despite all its efforts. Suddenly, out of your peripherals, you spot a cat readying for a pounce. Sacre bleu! You rush over to scoop up the little bundle of feathers, take it into the house, and try to remember how to assemble a shoebox nest to serve as a habitat for your precious little find. You'll raise it yourself until it's ready to fly.

While this is wrong on several levels, it's not because you touched the bird.

Baby birds usually don't leave the nest until they're ready (or at least readyish) to fly. But, just like how well you drove during your very first driving lesson, they typically stink at flying at first. So needless to say, they suffer a few false starts and end up on the ground, whining like a teenager who wants the keys but hasn't completely got the hang of which is the gas and which is the brake.

But that doesn't mean the fledgling's parents aren't supervising their offspring. They're probably in a nearby tree, shuddering as their little dunce forgets all the lessons they taught it. And if you leave the baby bird alone, chances are they'll be there soon to smack it upside the head and tell it to pay more attention during the next round of flying lessons.

As for the scent issue – birds just don't smell too well. A few species are an exception, but chances are vastly greater that the little chirping ball of fluff won't suffer if you need to move it to the other side of the fence from where your dog plays. Plus, its parents have invested way too much time and energy raising it to just scoot off at the first opportunity, no matter how the little guy smells.

Not Pictured: Maturity. (Also Not Pictured: A measly four-taste-enabled tongue ... )

Design Pics/Thinkstock

Lots of people think different parts of the tongue are fine-tuned to detect different tastes. The tip of the tongue is where you get your cupcake on, the sides are where the salty taste really hits home, bitter's in the back, and in between is the sour zone. This "fact" was the prevailing notion for a very long time. It has persisted in spite of millions of kids in health class insisting that the wooden spoon just tastes like wooden spoon, no matter how they lick it.

More recently, however, we've found out that the whole zones theory was pretty much bologna. (That would be the umami talking. More about that in a sec.) It turns out people can sense different tastes all over their tongues. There are a few outliers, but for most people, them's the facts.

Then there's the fifth basic taste that doesn't get a lot of PR, and that'sumami. Auguste Escoffier, the pimpest chef in 19th century France, concocted this fifth wheel in the palate party. Foodies swooned over it – it's been described as savory and meaty – but scientists stuck to the sweet/salty/bitter/sour taste tetrahedron.

Even though umami was a familiar taste in Japan, the "fifth taste" idea didn't get much traction there, either. That is until Kikunae Ikeda, a whiz-bang Japanese chemist, decided to get to the bottom of what umami was all about. He figured out the taste came from glutamic acid, and he called it the Japanese version of yummy.

No one at the time believed him, though, and it wasn't until the end of the 20th century that scientists decided to look into it. They realized Ikeda was right all along.

THE WRONG BELIEF THAT REALLY WAS

Flat Earth – not so much. But people really did believe that the Earth was at the center of the solar system. Physicists, mathematicians and astronomers thought up all kinds of complicated equations to explain why planets moved through the sky in a way that made no sense if they were orbiting Earth. Realizing that the planets orbited the sun solved that problem.

Christopher Columbus' crew had a lot to be worried about as they set sail. There was the possibility that they might wind up with scurvy or meander into a vengeful weather front, and of course there were all those warnings about where there be monsters.

But falling off the edge of the planet? Not so much. The idea that Columbus was endeavoring to attempt the unimaginable, defy all existing scientific precedent and become an international celebrity for not toppling off the world is false.

People have known since the learned and logic-laden age of the Greeks that they lived on a great, big globe. There were lots of obvious clues, like the way ships sailed over the horizon.

There were many objections to Columbus' plan to reach the East Indies via a somewhat novel route, but a tragic (and expensive) plunge into the abyss wasn't one of them. Most contentious were the logistics. Given the estimated (and not too shabby) size of the globe, there were steep odds his ships wouldn't successfully reach their intended destination. In the 1800s, the "knowledge" that our goofy, dark-ages ancestors had just up and forgotten the shape of the thing that they lived on started to circulate.

Pictured: Blood. (It's red!)

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Everybody has veins snaking up and down their bodies, and those veins are blue. So it stands to reason that whatever magical and mysterious substance courses through those veins (all right, fine, it's just boring, old blood) is, as a matter of course, blue.

But no! Once your blood has stopped by the bank (your lungs) and picked up a withdrawal of cash monies (oxygen) it's flush with greenbacks (bright red blood). Once it's spent a night on the town (circulated through your body), it returns with a massive hangover (the blood has turned dark red) and it goes to curl up on the couch (take another pass through the heart).

Basically, the veins are blue thanks to a trick of the light, not the color of what's inside th