CAN YOU REALLY
HOLD ONTO THE
ROOF OF A
SPEEDING CAR?
Finding: PLAUSIBLE
Explanation: Swimmers have pondered the ills of poor water quality and its role in speedreduction for years. In 2003, researchers at the University of Minnesota finally put this mystery
to the test, finding that swimming in syrup wouldn't really slow a swimmer's progress. But the
MythBusters decided to "go for the goo" themselves.
Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage compared the time it took to paddle from one end of the pool
to the other, both in water and a syrup-like guar gum mixture. While the tests went swimmingly,
the results were surprising. Slogging through a pool of sticky stuff would add only a small
amount of time to your personal best. Turns out, the physical energy a swimmer uses actually
matters more than the thickness of the "water." This phenomenon, called theoretical square law,
means a swimmer's motion is determined more by the speed of arm and leg movements than by
the fluid he's moving through.
So, even if you're swimming in syrup, you could move your arms faster to make up for the drag.
You aren't likely to break any speed records simply because you'll tire faster, but you can still get
the job done.
As seen in "MythBusters: Swimming in Syrup."
IS IT POSSIBLE TO
SWIM JUST AS
FAST IN SYRUP AS
YOU DO IN
WATER?
Finding: BUSTED
Explanation: When you see a movie scene where a guy is clinging to the roof of a moving car,
there's a good chance the stuntman in question is safely harnessed to the vehicle. Otherwise, it
would be pretty much impossible to hang on for the ride.
Unless a car's windows are down, there's little to hold on to when you're on the roof. Even at
speeds under 45 miles per hour, the MythBusters demonstrated that a person can't grip tightly
enough to stay atop a car while it's moving. Any turning or stopping only makes matters worse,
since Newton's laws of motion won't work in your favor. For example, if the car turns, an
invisible nemesis called centrifugal force — a kind of inertia that keeps you flying away from the
center of rotation — will literally shove you off the roof.
And when the driver slams on the brakes, your forward-moving body will keep right on sailing
into the air. With the windows lowered — or if you hop on the car's slightly easier-to-grip hood
— there's a better chance that you could hang on for dear life, but the odds still aren't in your
favor.
Sorry, did we just ruin that summer blockbuster for you?
As seen in "MythBusters: Prison Escape."
Tackling Obesity by
Manipulating Gut Flora
by Will Parker
(27 August 2012) Antibiotics could one day be the standard treatment for regulating weight,
suggests a new study in Nature Immunology that examines the interactions between diet, the
bacteria in our gut, and our immune systems.
The 500 different types of bacteria present in our gut provide the enzymes necessary for the
uptake of nutrients, synthesize certain vitamins and boost absorption of energy from food. Last
century, farmers learned that by tweaking the microbial mix in their livestock with low-dose oral
antibiotics, they could accelerate weight gain.
In the new study, researchers at the University of Chicago found they were able to manipulate
some of the mechanisms that regulate weight gain. They focused on the relationship between the
immune system, gut bacteria, digestion and obesity. Their findings show how weight gain
requires not just caloric overload but also a delicate, adjustable - and transmissible - interplay
between intestinal microbes and the immune response.
"Diet-induced obesity depends not just on calories ingested but also on the host's microbiome,"
said the study's senior author Yang-Xin Fu, professor of pathology at the University of Chicago
Medical Center. "For most people, host digestion is not completely efficient, but changes in the
gut flora can raise or lower digestive efficiency."
In one experiment, the researchers compared normal mice with mice that have a genetic defect
that renders them unable to produce lymphotoxin, a molecule that helps to regulate interactions
between the immune system and bacteria in the bowel. On a standard diet, both groups of mice
maintained a steady weight. But after nine weeks on a high-fat diet, the normal mice increased
their weight by one-third, most of it fat. Mice lacking lymphotoxin ate just as much, but did not
gain weight.
According to Fu, the high-fat diet triggered changes in gut microbes for both groups. The normal
mice had a substantial increase in a class of bacteria (Erysopelotrichi) that has previously been
associated with obesity.
The role of gut microbes was confirmed when the researchers transplanted bowel contents from
the study mice to normal mice raised in a germ-free environment - and thus lacking their own
microbiome. Mice who received commensal bacteria from donors that made lymphotoxin gained
weight rapidly. Those that got the bacteria from mice lacking lymphotoxin gained much less
weight for about three weeks, until their own intact immune system began to normalize their
bacterial mix.
When housed together, the mice performed their own microbial transplants (mice are
coprophagic, eating each other's droppings). In this way, the authors note, mice housed together
"colonize one another with their own microbial communities." After weeks together, even mice
with the immune defect began to gain weight.
Fu says moving from normal chow to the high-fat diet initiated a series of related changes. First,
it altered the balance of microbes in the digestive system. These changes in the microbiome
altered the immune response, which then introduced further changes to the intestinal microbial
community. These changes "provide inertia for the obese state," the authors claim, facilitating
more efficient use of scarce food resources.
"Our results suggest that it may be possible to learn how to regulate these microbes in ways that
could help prevent diseases associated with obesity," said co-researcher Vaibhav Upadhyay. "We
now think we could inhibit the negative side effects of obesity by regulating the microbiota and
perhaps manipulating the immune response."
Or, 20 years from now, "when there are 10 billion people living on earth and competing for food,
we may want to tilt digestive efficiency in the other direction," Fu added.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120824103020.htm
Helicobacter pylori bacteria in stomach
Credit: DAVID MCCARTHY/SCIENCE PHOTO
LIBRARY
Caption: Helicobacter pylori bacteria. Coloured
scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of Helicobacter
pylori bacteria (pink), a cause of gastritis (stomach
lining inflammation). These Gram- negative, rodshaped, bacteria are commonly found in the mucosal
lining of the stomach in middle-aged people. Their
presence is also associated with the formation of ulcers
in the duodenum (part of the small intestine).
Magnification: x3100 at 6x7cm size.
http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/11851/enlarge
Most Mutations Come
from Dad: New Insights
Into Age, Height and Sex
Reshape Views of Human
Evolution
(Aug. 23, 2012) — Humans inherit more than three times as many mutations from their fathers as
from their mothers, and mutation rates increase with the father's age but not the mother's,
researchers have found in the largest study of human genetic mutations to date.
The study, based on the DNA of around 85,000 Icelanders, also calculates the rate of human
mutation at high resolution, providing estimates of when human ancestors diverged from
nonhuman primates. It is one of two papers published this week by the journal Nature Genetics
as well as one published at Nature that shed dramatic new light on human evolution.
"Most mutations come from dad," said David Reich, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical
School and a co-leader of the study. In addition to finding 3.3 paternal germline mutations for
each maternal mutation, the study also found that the mutation rate in fathers doubles from age
20 to 58 but that there is no association with age in mothers -- a finding that may shed light on
conditions, such as autism, that correlate with the father's age.
The study's first author is James Sun, a graduate student in Reich's lab who worked with
researchers from deCODE Genetics, a biopharma company based in Reykjavik, Iceland, to
analyze about 2,500 short sequences of DNA taken from 85,289 Icelanders in 24,832 fathermother-child trios. The sequences, called microsatellites, vary in the number of times that they
repeat, and are known to mutate at a higher rate than average places in the genome.
Reich's team identified 2,058 mutational changes, yielding a rate of mutation that suggests
human and chimpanzee ancestral populations diverged between 3.7 million and 6.6 million years
ago.
A second team, also based at deCODE Genetics (but not involving HMS researchers), published
a paper this week in Nature on a large-scale direct estimate of the rate of single nucleotide
substitutions in human genomes (a different type of mutation process), and came to largely
consistent findings.
The finding complicates theories drawn from the fossil evidence. The upper bound, 6.6 million
years, is less than the published date of Sahelanthropus tchadensis, a fossil that has been
interpreted to be a human ancestor since the separation of chimpanzees, but is dated to around 7
million years old. The new study suggests that this fossil may be incorrectly interpreted.
Great Heights - A second study led by HMS researchers, also published in Nature Genetics this
week, adds to the picture of human evolution, describing a newly observable form of recent
genetic adaptation.
The team led by Joel Hirschhorn, Concordia Professor of Pediatrics and professor of genetics at
Boston Children's Hospital and HMS, first asked why closely-related populations can have
noticeably different average heights. David Reich also contributed to this study.
They examined genome-wide association data and found that average differences in height
across Europe are partly due to genetic factors. They then showed that these genetic differences
are the result of an evolutionary process that acts on variation in many genes at once. This type
of evolution had been proposed to exist but had not previously been detected in humans.
Although recent human evolution is difficult to observe directly, some of its impact can be
inferred by studying the human genome. In recent years, genetic studies have uncovered many
examples where recent evolution has left a distinctive signature on the human genome. The
clearest "footprints" of evolution have been seen in regions of DNA surrounding mutations that
occurred fairly recently (typically in the last several thousand years) and confer an advantageous
trait, such as resistance to malaria. Hirschhorn's team observed, for the first time in humans, a
different signature of recent evolution: widespread small but consistent changes at many
different places in the genome, all affecting the same trait, adult height.
"This paper offers the first proof and clear example of a new kind of human evolution for a
specific trait," said Hirschhorn, who is also a senior associate member of the Broad Institute.
"We provide a demonstration of how humans have been able to adapt rapidly without needing to
wait for new mutations to happen, by drawing instead on the existing genetic diversity within the
human population."
Average heights can differ between populations, even populations that are genetically very
similar, which suggests that human height might have been evolving differently across these
populations. Hirschhorn's team studied variants in the genome that are known to have small but
consistent effects on height: people inheriting the "tall" version of these variants are known to be
slightly taller on average than people inheriting the "short" versions of the same variants.
The researchers discovered that, in northern Europe, the "tall" versions of these variants are
consistently a little more common than they are in southern Europe. The combined effects of the
"tall" versions being more common can partly explain why northern Europeans are on average
taller than southern Europeans. The researchers then showed that these slight differences have
arisen as a result of evolution acting at many variants, and acting differently in northern than in
southern Europe.
"This paper explains -- at least in part -- why some European populations, such as people from
Sweden, are taller on average than others, such as people from Italy," Hirschhorn said.
The researchers were only able to detect this signature of evolution by using the results of recent
genome-wide association studies by the GIANT consortium, which identified hundreds of
different genetic variants that influence height.
Story Source: The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Harvard Medical
School. The original article was written by R. Alan Leo.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the
source cited above.
Journal References:
1. James X Sun, Agnar Helgason, Gisli Masson, Sigríður Sunna Ebenesersdóttir, Heng Li,
Swapan Mallick, Sante Gnerre, Nick Patterson, Augustine Kong, David Reich & Kari
Stefansson. A direct characterization of human mutation based on microsatellites.
Nature, August 23, 2012 DOI: 10.1038/ng.2398
Michael C Turchin, Charleston WK Chiang, Cameron D Palmer, Sriram Sankararaman, David
Reich, Joel N Hirschhorn. Evidence of widespread selection on standing variation in Europe
at height-associated SNPs. Nature Genetics, 2012; DOI: 10.1038/ng.2368
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120824103020.htm
Nerves innervate color-changing structures called
iridophores in squid skin.
CREDIT: Wardill, Gonzalez-Bellido, Crook & Hanlon,
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
The Physics of
Loudmouths: Why Some
Voices Carry
By: Natalie Wolchover, Life's Little Mysteries Staff Writer
(07 August 2012) - You know that guy with the voice heard 'round the world? The one who —
no matter how far away he is — sounds as if he is shrieking directly into your ear? He seems to
show up at every party, restaurant and (worst of all) office.
Voices that "carry" contain a pitch of sound that strongly resonates with both the human vocal
tract and the human ear, said acoustics expert John Smith, a biophysicist at the University of
New South Wales in New Zealand. This piercing pitch, dubbed the "speaker's formant," has a
frequency around 3,000 hertz, or 3,000 beats per second: about the same frequency as that of
fingernails scraping a chalkboard.
By comparison, most human speech falls in the gentler 80- to 250-hertz (Hz) range.
How do loudmouthed people generate that much faster and much more earsplitting frequency?
Understanding their method requires a short lesson on how speech works.
We generate sound by rapidly vibrating two small flaps of mucous membrane called vocal folds
in our voice boxes, Smith said. The back-and-forth motions of these folds interrupt the flow of
air from our lungs to create "puffs" of sound. If our vocal folds wiggle back and forth 100 times
each second, they produce puffs with a frequency of 100 beats per second (Hz). However,
additional motions of the vocal folds, such as collisions with each other, can generate additional
frequencies that are multiples of that fundamental frequency: "harmonics" at 200 Hz, 300 Hz,
400 Hz and so on.
All these frequencies travel together through the vocal tract — the tubelike cavity leading from
the voice box up through the throat and mouth to the outside world. Depending on its shape, this
tract resonates at certain frequencies, meaning it vibrates in time with them. In the same way that
an organ pipe increases the amplitude of the sound waves that travel through it, the resonance of
the vocal tract amplifies those resonant frequencies, making them louder.
And that's the trick: Whether done subconsciously or on purpose, loud talkers have learned to
harness the natural resonances of their vocal tracts to pump up the volume of their voices. First,
they manipulate their vocal folds to generate a harmonic frequency up around 3,000 Hz. "This
could involve using a stronger flow of air from the lungs and controlling the folds so they
undergo a motion that results in a sound that is intrinsically richer in harmonics," Smith told
Life's Little Mysteries. Most people mainly produce harmonics at lower frequencies.
Second, they alter the shape of their vocal tract, often narrowing or restricting the tract just above
the vocal folds, so that it will resonate at that high frequency, making the high frequency louder.
"This increase in sound level occurs in a frequency range where the ear is more sensitive and
where background noise is usually reduced," Smith said. "Coupled with any increased harmonic
content from the vocal folds, it can produce a large increase in subjective loudness."
Recent and ongoing research by Smith and his colleagues shows that singers make similar
adjustments to their vocal tracts in order to project their voices. The scientists have managed to
characterize how this is done at different pitches. In a report published in January in the Journal
of the Acoustic Society of America, they showed that even trumpet players seem to control their
own vocal resonances in order to play very high notes.
The difference is, singers and musicians are paid to project their sounds. Loudmouths do it
voluntarily.
http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/2752-loudmouth-voices-carry.html
http://www.randallmorton.com/Voice.htm
Secret to Squid's Iridescent
Rainbow Skin Discovered
Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
(14 August 2012) - For squid looking to sparkle, extra bling is only seconds away, thanks to a
nerve network in the skin that allows these cephalopods to alter their iridescence — the first
invertebrate creatures found to have this ability.
A new study finds that electrical stimulation of the nerves in squid skin changes the color and
reflectance of tiny platelike structures called iridophores in the skin, allowing changes in hue
from red all the way through the color spectrum to blue.
Oddly enough, despite their bright displays, these squid see only in black-and-white, deepening
the mystery of why and how they pick a color from their array.
"The cool thing about it is that these animals are colorblind and yet they are producing a color
signal," said study researcher Paloma Gonzalez Bellido of the Marine Biological Laboratory
(MBL) at Woods Hole, Mass. "It's puzzling to us — even if it isn't for [squid to see], if it is for
camouflage, how do you know you're doing this right? You can't see color."
Creating iridescence
Squid, octopus and other cephalopods have amazing color-changing abilities thanks to
specialized structures in their skin called chromatophores. But most squid species also have
another set of specialized structures called iridophores, said study researcher Trevor Wardill, a
research associate at MBL.
Unlike most colors we see, which are caused by pigments absorbing and reflecting certain
wavelengths of light, iridescence is caused by structures interfering with the reflectance of light,
causing the wavelengths to interact with one another and creating intense, almost metallic hues.
Iridophores are made of complex stacked plates that cause this interference, Wardill told
LiveScience.
What wasn't clear is how the iridophores worked. By definition, iridescent color appears slightly
different when viewed from different angles, Wardill said, so measuring iridescence changes is
tricky.
To figure out the iridophores' secrets, the researchers carefully dissected the skin of dead longfin
inshore squid (Doryteuthis pealeii). They traced the nerves of the skin and stimulated them
electrically, finding that they could instigate progressive changes in skin color from the at-rest
reddish state all the way through the color spectrum to blue.
Unlike the very fast changes seen in chromatophores, the alteration in iridophores moves more
slowly, Wardill said, cycling through the rainbow from red to orange to yellow to green to blue
over a period of about 15 seconds.
Color-changing mystery
The neural control for the color changes isn't a local reflex, Gonzalez Bellido said; it comes from
the central nervous system. The next mystery to solve is how precisely the squid can pick and
hold any given color, Wardill said. In the end, the researchers hope to understand how these
cephalopods decide without the benefit of color vision what hues they need to display.
"The animals are actually developing color on the skin and they're doing it without pigments, and
they potentially have the chance to be picking a certain color," Wardill said. "That would be very
exciting, because there are not many examples from any animals that could pick a color and put
it on so quickly."
The researchers report their work today (Aug. 14) in the journal Biological Sciences.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on
Facebook & Google+.
http://www.livescience.com/22365-squid-iridescent-rainbow-skin-changes.html
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIC3Causes.shtml
Dietitian/Nutritionist
Dietitians and nutritionists are experts in food and nutrition. They advise people on what to eat in
order to lead a healthy lifestyle or achieve a specific health-related goal.
Duties
Dietitians and nutritionists typically do the following:





Explain nutrition issues
Assess patients’ and clients’ health needs and diet
Develop meal plans, taking both cost and clients’ preferences into account
Evaluate the effects of meal plans and change the plans as needed
Promote better nutrition by giving talks to groups about diet, nutrition, and the
relationship between good eating habits and preventing or managing specific diseases
 Keep up with the latest nutritional science research
Some dietitians and nutritionists provide customized information for specific individuals. For
example, a dietitian or nutritionist might teach a patient with high blood pressure how to use less
salt when preparing meals. Others work with groups of people who have similar needs. A
dietitian or nutritionist might, for example, plan a diet with reduced fat and sugar to help
overweight people lose weight.
Although all dietitians and nutritionists do similar tasks, there are several specialties within the
occupations. The following are examples of types of dietitians and nutritionists:
Clinical dietitians provide medical nutrition therapy. They work in hospitals, long-term care
facilities, and other institutions. They create both individualized and group nutritional programs
based on the health needs of patients or residents. Clinical dietitians may further specialize, such
as working only with patients with kidney diseases. They may work with other healthcare
professionals.
Management dietitians plan meal programs. They work in food service settings such as
cafeterias, hospitals, and food corporations. They may be responsible for buying food and for
carrying out other business-related tasks. Management dietitians may oversee kitchen staff or
other dietitians.
Community dietitians educate the public on topics related to food and nutrition. They often
work with specific groups of people, such as pregnant women. They work in public health
clinics, government and non-profit agencies, health maintenance organizations (HMOs), and
other settings.
Work Environment
Dietitians and nutritionists held about 64,400 jobs in 2010.
Dietitians and nutritionists work in hospitals, cafeterias, nursing homes, and schools. Some
dietitians and nutritionists are self-employed and maintain their own practice. They work as
consultants, providing advice to individual clients, or they work for healthcare establishments on
a contract basis.
Work Schedules - Most dietitians and nutritionists work full time, although about 20 percent
work part time. Self-employed, consultant dietitians have more flexibility in setting their
schedules.
How to Become a Dietitian or Nutritionist
Most dietitians and nutritionists have earned a bachelor’s degree and receive supervised training
through an internship or as a part of their coursework. Also, many states require dietitians and
nutritionists to be licensed.
Education - Most dietitians and nutritionists have earned a bachelor’s degree in dietetics, foods
and nutrition, food service systems management, or a related area. Programs include courses in
nutrition, physiology, chemistry, and biology.
Training - Dietitians and nutritionists typically participate in several hundred hours of
supervised training, usually in the form of an internship following graduation from college.
However, some programs in dietetics include this training as part of the coursework.
Many dietitians and nutritionists have advanced degrees.
Licenses and Certification - Most states require licensure of dietitians and nutritionists. Other
states require only state registration or certification, and a few have no state regulations.
Most states have enacted state licensure or certification for dietitians or nutritionists or both. The
requirements for state licensure and state certification include having a bachelor’s degree in food
and nutrition or a related area, supervised practice, and passing an exam.
One way to become licensed is to earn the Registered Dietitian (RD) credential. While the RD is
not always required, the qualifications necessary to become an RD are parallel to the
qualifications necessary to become a licensed dietitian in all states that require a license. Many
employers prefer or require the RD, which is administered by the Commission on Dietetic
Registration, the credentialing agency for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
The requirements for the RD credential are similar, but not identical to the licensing
requirements in many states. The RD requires dietitians to complete education and supervised
practice programs. These programs are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Education in
Nutrition and Dietetics (ACEND). In order to maintain the RD credential, Registered Dietitians
must complete continuing professional education courses.
Important Qualities
Analytical skills. Dietitians must keep up to date with the latest nutrition research. They
should be able to interpret scientific studies and translate nutrition science into practical
eating advice.
Organizational skills. Because there are many aspects to the work of dietitians and
nutritionists, they should have the ability to stay organized. Management dietitians, for
example, must consider both the nutritional needs of their customers and the costs of
meals.
People skills. Dietitians and nutritionists must listen carefully to understand clients’ goals
and concerns. They also have to be emphatic to help clients confront and overcome
dietary struggles.
Speaking skills. Dietitians and nutritionists must explain complicated topics in a way
that people with less technical knowledge understand. For example, a clinical dietitian
must be able to clearly tell clients about what to eat and why eating the recommended
foods is important.
Pay
The median annual wage of dietitians and nutritionists was $53,250 in May 2010. The
median annual wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more
than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $33,330,
and the top 10 percent earned more than $75,480.
Most dietitians and nutritionists work full time, although about 20 percent work part time.
Self-employed, consultant dietitians have more flexibility in setting their schedules.
Job Outlook
Employment of dietitians and nutritionists is expected to increase 20 percent from 2010
to 2020, faster than average for all occupations.
In recent years, there has been increased interest in the role of food in promoting health
and wellness, particularly as a part of preventative healthcare in medical settings. The
importance of diet in preventing and treating illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease
is now well known. More dietitians and nutritionists will be needed to provide care for
people with these conditions.
An aging population also will increase the need for dietitians and nutritionists in nursing
homes.
Contacts for More Information
For a list of academic programs, scholarships, and other information about dietitians, visit
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
For information on the Registered Dietitian (RD) exam and other specialty credentials,
visitCommission on Dietetic Registration
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/Healthcare/Dietitians-and-nutritionists.htm#tab-1
Photo Gallery:
Animal Record
Breakers
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/photos/animal-records-gallery/
African Elephant
Photograph by Beverly Joubert
For thousands of years, humans have
utilized the brute strength of African
and Asian elephants for everything
from war to transportation. An
elephant's trunk alone contains
around 100,000 muscles and can lift
up to 600 pounds (270 kilograms).
Rhinoceros Beetle
Photograph by Jupiterimages
Compared to an elephant, the
rhinoceros beetle looks minuscule.
But ounce for ounce, this insect is
considered the world's strongest
creature. Rhinoceros beetles, which
get their name from the hornlike
structure on a male's head, are
capable of carrying up to 850 times
their own body weight. A human
with this relative strength would be
able to lift some 65 tons (59 metric
tons).
Froghopper
Photograph by Jupiterimages
The froghopper, or spittle bug, leaps into
the record books as the insect world's
greatest jumper. This tiny insect reaches
a mere 0.2 inches (6 millimeters) in
length but can catapult itself up to 28
inches (70 centimeters) into the air. A
human with this ability would be able to
clear a 690-foot-tall (210-meter-tall)
skyscraper.
Impala
Photograph by Chris Johns
The impala, an African antelope with
long, slender legs and muscular
thighs, also gets high marks for its
leaping abilities. When frightened,
an impala will spring into action,
bounding up to 33 feet (10 meters)
and soaring some 10 feet (3 meters)
in the air. This skill is apparently
more than just defensive. Impalas
have been observed jumping around
just to amuse themselves.
Bar-Tailed Godwit
Photograph courtesy USFWS
In 2007, a bar-tailed godwit made the
longest nonstop bird migration ever
recorded. In nine days, it flew 7,145
miles (11,500 kilometers) from its
breeding ground in Alaska to New
Zealand without stopping for food or
drink. By the end of the epic journey, the
bird had lost more than 50 percent of its
body weight.
Sooty Shearwater
Photograph by Terry Whittaker / Alamy
The annual journey of the sooty
shearwater bird rivals that of the bartailed godwit. These marathon migrators
traverse nearly 40,000 miles (64,000
kilometers) each year, from New
Zealand to the Northern Hemisphere, in
search of food.
Great White Shark
Photograph by Mike Parry/Minden Pictures
In 2005, a great white shark entered the record
books by completing the longest shark
migration ever recorded. Named Nicole by
researchers, the shark made a 12,400-mile
(20,000-kilometer) marathon circuit from
Africa to Australia. The journey, which lasted
nine months, also included the fastest return
migration of any known marine animal.
Tracking systems showed that Nicole spent a
lot of the time near the surface, leading some
scientists to believe that sharks use celestial
cues to navigate.
Sailfish
Photograph by John Lewis,
National Geographic My Shot
Officially the world's fastest fish,
sailfish can reach speeds of 68
miles an hour (109 kilometers an
hour) in short bursts. They often
hunt in groups and use their
quickness and impressive dorsal
to herd schools of sardines or
anchovies.
fins
Cheetah
Photograph by Chris Johns
The cheetah, holder of the animal kingdom's land
speed record, can run at more than 60 miles an
hour (96 kilometers an hour) and can reach its
top speed in just three seconds. These champion
sprinters rely on long, muscular legs to propel
their lithe bodies. But cheetahs expend a
tremendous amount of energy during a chase and
can only run all out for about 900 feet (274
meters).
T. Rex
Illustration by Michael Skrepnick
Scientists have long debated the speed
and agility of this prehistoric giant.
While some propose that T rex. was
capable of nothing more than a
leisurely jog, other investigations have
shown that the six-ton (5.4-metric-ton)
predator could possibly have outrun an
Olympic sprinter, reaching a top speed
of 18 miles an hour (29 kilometers an
hour).
Peregrine Falcon
Photograph by Tim Fitzharris /
Minden Pictures
The peregrine falcon holds the title
of the animal kingdom's fastest
flier. Using a dive-bomb hunting
technique called a stoop, this raptor
attacks prey—usually a pigeon or
dove—at speeds of up to 200 miles
an hour (322 kilometers an hour).
It seizes its victim in midair with
its sharp talons, then takes it to the
ground to eat.