CULTURAL QA 05-2022-12 BEING A COMPILATIONTHERE MAY BE ERRORS
Q1 Should fungi be classified as plants?Why or why not? A1 Ken Saladin Emeritus professor ofbiology Updated May 3 Upon casualobservation when we see these stalky mushrooms growing out of the forest floor, it’s hard not to think ofsuch organisms as plants, isn’t it? Until 1969, that’s howbiologists regarded them. (See “Taxonomy” section of[1]; see also[2].) It’shard, too, to think of these mushrooms and the slimy mold on this petri plate,the bracket fungus growing on a tree, and microscopic yeasts, as members of thesame kingdom. That’s wherescience comes in, taking a closer look at things with all the tools at ourdisposal—morphology, physiology, biochemistry, and genetics in this case. Fungi (from unicellular yeasts to the largest mushrooms andbracket fungi) have cell walls made of chitin (the substance also found ininsect and crab exoskeletons, roundworm eggs, cysts of pathogenic amoebae, andworm cuticles)[3] ; plants have cell walls of cellulose. Fungi areheterotrophic[4] (absorbing ready-made organic nutrients from other organismsor their remains); most plants are autotrophic (making their owncarbohydrates). All plants are multicellular; many fungi (particularly theyeasts) are unicellular. When plantsmove—whether bending toward light or slowly changing location like the“walking” trees—it’s by growing in a new direction through cell division and elongation. Whenfungi move, it is by cytoplasmic flowing in their hyphae, in an amoeboidfashion. (The brackets and mushrooms you see are just reproductivebodies. They’re basically stationary; the movement occurs in the hyphalnetworks on and below the soil surface.) Q2 Is the continent of Australia the onlycontinent in the world that has only one country in it, namely Australia? A2 Claire Jordan Degree in biology andfolklore; programmer, shop owner, secretary on newspaper May 2 Maybe, maybe not. If you accept therecent decision, based on continental shelves, to call the raised area on which NewZealand sits its own continent, Zealandia, then that too is a one-countrycontinent. If you stickto the old system of saying that New Zealand is part of a continent calledAustralasia then neither New Zealand nor Australia is a one countrycontinent. Q3 Are baby mammals designed to be cute,or is it just that humans are set up to find them cute? A3 C.S. Friedman Science Fiction andFantasy novelist Apr 28 Yes. The cuteness of young animals involves features thatall baby mammals and many other species share. They are: Headdisproportionately large for the body. Often large eyes, proportionate to face.Shorter muzzle/flatter face. Rounder face There are someother features as well, but those are the noteworthy ones. All the species for whom this is true are “programmed” torespond to those cues by instinctively wanting to protect and nurture theiryoung.(Scientific translation: Natural selection favored individuals where the younghad those features and the adults had those instincts.) So when a human sees a baby of any such species, itinstinctively responds to its “youth” features by wanting tonurture and care for the infant. (And to pet/cuddle it as well, because mammalstake comfort in physical contact.) And because those features are universal,animals may respond to them even with babies that are not of their own species. And here is aspider. It’s an artistic creation, not a real spider, but it shows you how evena creature that many normally find unappealing can strike the “awwwwwww” nervejust by adding the features I have listed above Q4 Why can't real airplanes be designed sothat they can "float" or "glide" like paper airplanes, incase there is a problem? A4 Andrew McGregor Flown several types oflight aircraft. May 6 They are, and they do. A total engine failure means the plane just turned into aglider. They fly just fine like that, but you are going to land fairly soon. Which is why, when flying a single engineplane, you pick a continuous series of likely forced-landing location as youfly along, so that (ideally) when the engine fails, you already knowwhere you are going. This is also why almost all scheduled services are inmulti-engine planes; they have to fly reasonably well with one failed engine,well enough that with careful planning there is always anairport within single-engine range of the entire flight path. All licensed pilotshave practiced engine failure procedures till they can do them in their sleep,and that includes glide landings in light singles. The main content of themulti-engine rating is engine failures and how to deal with them safely. Three very famousaviation incidents involving total engine failures have happened, and in allthose cases everyone survived: A 747 flew througha volcanic ash cloud and lost all four engines. They were gliding for 45minutes (yes, really) until they got one, and then eventually three, enginesstarted; one failed again, so they landed on two engines. A 767 wasincorrectly fuelled, and ran out mid-flight, landing on a disused airbase inCanada (the “Gimli Glider” incident). Most famously, the ‘Miracle on the Hudson’,where an A320 lost both engines to birdstrike at low altitude over New YorkCity, and made a glide ditching in the Hudson River. In all of these,the pilots had full control all the way through the incident. Two of them weregliding for quite a long time. Q5 What did you see today that melted yourheart? A5 Aashish Kumar Dimri News and PoliticalAnalyst Mon Idli amma : M Kamalathal (85 years old),a resident ofCoimbatore, Tamilnadu, is known as Idliamma (idliselling mother) for her mouth watering idlis along with hot piping sambhar andchutney . She prepares them specifically to migrant workers anddestitutes at Rs 1. She has been selling her delicaciessince last thirty seven years. This loving elder stays alone and does her own chores-domestic to kitchen duties. Selfness :Naturally, her selflessness has impacted many; who want to help her in a way oranother. Gratitude : As a gratitude, Anand Mahindra, a well knownIndian tycoon and philanthropist gifted her a new home on internationalMother’s day ! Salutations toIdli-amma and Anand ji for being humane ! Perhaps: “Sometimesit takes only one act of kindness and caring to change a person’s life.” :Jackie Chan (actor-philanthropist) Q6 Why did some civilizations fail toinvent the wheel when it is so obvious? A6 Cyrke Stuffl Former Currently a RetiredBoomer at Home at Hospitals (1979–2009)Apr 21 The wheel is one ofthe most influential inventions of ‘primitive technology’, but i.e. It was not until 3500 that one of thesharp-witted inventors came up with it. By this time, humanity hadalready used channels, alloyed metals, and played complex instruments such asthe harp. It was notdifficult to produce a cylinder that rolled at its head; the trick was to makethis stable. “At the heart of this was the concept of the wheel axle,” saidDavid Anthony, an anthropologist at Hartwick College and author of the bookHorse, Wheel, and Tongue. Thesecret of the stable axle and the rotating wheel was that the former had to bealmost perfectly smooth and round, as had the holes in the center of the wheels.Otherwise, friction made it difficult for the wheel to rotate, and the axle hadto fit comfortably in the holes for the rotation to take place freely. Whoever invented the wheel needed a lot of wood as well asmetal tools to make the holes and axles. According toAnthony, the fact that the wheel was invented only so late was due to therelatively late date of the development of the carpentry trade, since only sothe use of the bronze chisel spread around 4000. According to the current state of science, the wheel wasinvented at one time, in one place. From then on, however,it spread rapidly in Eurasia and the Middle East; so much so that it is almostimpossible to tell who came up with it and where. The first images depictingcarts come from Poland and the Eurasian steppes, so it is likely that this maynot be the region where Mesopotamia, Iraq today, was born. According to the Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola, thelinguistic sources clearly show that the “perpetrator” must be sought among therepresentatives of the Tripoli culture established in the territory ofpresent-day Ukraine. According to the researcher, this is also indicated by thefact that many miniaturized "carriage models" used for children'splay areas are known from the culture. Q7 When did they stop using cast ironsewer pipes? A7 Cleaning Teach Stay with Cleaning Teachto get information about Cleaning Apr 27 In 1980, cast iron pipes were no longer the pipe of choice.Builders and plumbersreplaced cast iron with rigid PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride plastic), which is easierto make, can be made quickly, is harder than other options, and hasgreater tensile strength. It is essentially a cheaper, faster alternative tocast iron. All the above QA are from Quora website on 13-05- 2022. Quora answers need not be 100% correct answers . Compiled and posted by R. Gopala krishnan on 13-05-2022 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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