Did you ever wonder which are the largest mammals on Earth?

By David McClelland

In pre-historic times, there were some really huge dinosaurs. An example was the Argentinosaurus, a Sauropod. There is reliable evidence that they measured about 120 feet in length and weighed over 100 tons (over 200,000 pounds). No land animal comes close to being that large today.

Today, we know that elephants are the largest mammals on land and that whales are the largest sea creatures, but just how large are they?

Elephants are either from Africa, south of the Sahara, or from India and Southeast Asia.
African elephants are now the largest land animals and grow to a height of about13 feet high and 13,228 pounds or more than 6.6 tons.

Whales are even bigger. The blue whale is the largest. They grow to over 97.5 feet in length and weigh about 150 tons or about 300,000 pounds. And we thought elephants were big! A blue whale's heart weighs 1,300 pounds and beats at only about ten times each minute, whereas as human heart beats about 70 times per minute on average. The male's testicles are large enough for a small child to crawl through the major artieies.

Probably the most interesting feature of and elephant's body is its trunk. Asian elephants have one "finger" on the end of their trunks. African elephants have two "fingers." The scientific word for an elephant's trunk is proboscis. An elephant uses its trunk like a hand to put food into its mouth and to suck up water to squirt into its mouth or over its body to keep itself cool. Elephants also use their trunks like snorkels when crossing deep rivers.

Elephants are very intelligent and have the largest brains of all land animals. They are known to possess very good memories. They say that an elephant never forgets. Female elephants are called cows and they live with their calves and younger males, called bulls, in herds of 20 to 30. Older bulls usually live alone. Once a year, bulls go into a state called Musth (pronounced, 'must'), when male hormones make them very wild and dangerous. To find food in dry areas, herds may travel vast distances with the bigger elephants protecting the little ones between their legs.

When the leader of the heard senses danger, she lifts her trunk and sniffs the air – then warns the others by using her trunk to give a loud blast called a trumpet. If an intruder comes too close, she will roll down her trunk, throw back her ears, lower her head and charge at up to 50 mph. Elephants, males and females, usually live to about 70 years of age. When an elephant dies, its companions seem to mourn and cry.

Whales, dolphins and porpoises are mammals that are called cetaceans and live mostly in the seas and oceans. Dolphins and porpoises are small whales. Like all mammals, whales have lungs, which means they have to surface for air frequently, although they can remain submerged for up to 40 minutes. A sperm whale can hold its breath under water for 2 hours. Whales breathe through blow-holes on the tops of their heads. When the whale breathes out, it spouts out water, vapour and mucus. When it breathes in, it sucks in about 2,000 liters of air within about 2 seconds. Grey whales migrate farther than any other known animal, about 12,000 miles every year. Built-in GPS?

Like land animals, whales nurse their babies with their own milk. Whale milk is so rich that babies grow incredibly fast. Blue Whale babies are nearly 23 feet long at birth and gain an extra ton or so each day for the next year.

There are several groups of whales that have teeth and prey on large fish and seals. They are the sperm, beaked, belugas, narwhals, dolphins, porpoise and river dolphins. Whales keep in touch with sounds called phonations. Large baleen whales make sounds which are too low for humans to hear, but they can be heard by other whales for at least 50 miles. Now, how do you suppose man ever figured that out? The blue whale can whistle up to 188 decibels and they are the loudest animals on Earth.

That is a lot about elephants and whales, but I have just scratched the surface.

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to visit the Moon?

By David McClelland

As I draft this blog, we have clear skies and a full Moon that is shining brightly like a spotlight from the heavens. Looking at it as I walked outside early this morning, I wondered what it would be like to visit our Moon, just to check it out.

I did some research and learned a little more about the Moon. Did you know that it is 25% or ¼ of the size of the Earth, but it is only 1/81 of its mass? I'd always imagined the Moon to be even smaller than that relative to the Earth. How far would we have to travel to get there? I was reminded that the Moon is 384,405 km from the Earth or about 238,858.2 miles.

The Moon orbits the Earth once every month with each orbit taking about 27.3 days. It spins once on its axis once every 720 hours or every 30 days. I find the precision of these movements to be fascinating since we can't keep any two clocks or watches exactly in sync. It just goes to show that God is better at everything, including timing.

The Moon is the Earth's only natural satellite and the 5th largest satellite in the Solar System. The Moon is the brightest object, after the Sun, in the night sky, but it does not give out any light itself. It shines down on us only because its light-colored surface reflects sunlight and only the side of the Moon lit by the Sun is bright enough for us to see. The Moon appears to change shape because we see more of the bright side each month as it orbits the Earth and then we see less of it again. These shapes are called the "phases" of the Moon. The Moon "waxes" (grows) from a crescent-shaped "new Moon" to a full moon. During the second half, it "wanes" (dwindles) back to a crescent-shaped "old Moon." A lunar month is the time between one full moon and the next. This is slightly longer than the time it takes the Moon to circle the Earth because the Earth is also moving.

The Moon has no atmosphere and its surface is simply white dust, pitted with craters created by meteorites smashing into it early in its history. The Moon is the only other world on which humans have ever set foot. Because the Moon has no atmosphere or wind, the footprints planted in its dusty surface in 1969 by the Apollo astronauts are still there today, perfectly preserved. There are also large, dark patches called seas – because that is what people once believed that they were. However, they are really lava flows from ancient volcanoes. One side of the Moon is always turned away from us and called its dark side. That is because the Moon spins at exactly the same speed as it orbits the Earth.

After the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited by only unmanned spacecraft, notably by Soviet Lunokhod rovers. Since 2004, Japan, China, India, the United States and the European Space Agency have each sent lunar orbiters. They have confirmed the discovery of lunar water/ice in permanently shadowed craters at the poles. The Moon remains under the Outer Space Treaty, free to all nations to explore for peaceful purposes.

Eclipes can only occur when the Sun, Earth and Moon are all in a straight line. Solar eclipses occur when the Moon is between the Sun and Earth. In contrast, lunar eclipses occur near a full Moon, when the Earth is between the Sun and Moon. In a total eclipse, the Moon completely covers the disc of the Sun and the solar corona becomes visible to the naked eye. Because the Moon's orbit around the Earth is inclined by about 5 degrees to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, eclipses do not occur at every full and new Moon. For an eclipse to occur, the Moon must be near the intersection of the two orbital planes.

Upcoming lunar missions include Russia's Luna-Glob, an unmanned lander with a set of seismometers. Privately funded lunar exploration has been promoted by the Google Lunar X Prize, announced in 2007, which offers $20 million to anyone who can land a robotic rover on the Moon and meet other specific criteria. Better tell your children and grandchildren to get to work on this project pronto!!! $20 million could come in handy!

Did you ever wonder how many American Indian Tribes exist today?

 

By David McClelland

 

I read John Grisham's book of short stories, Ford County, written in 2009. I really enjoyed all of the stories and one story, Casino, involves the creation of an Indian casino in a small town in Mississippi by a man who claimed to be part American Indian; i.e., Yazoo. That caused me to wonder about our U.S. Indian tribes and I did the research.

 

I was astounded to learn that there are more than 550 recognized Indian tribes and 310 Indian reservations in the United States. There are too many tribes to include here, but I will list the ones that I recognized, probably from my early years of watching western movies. They are: Apache, Arapaho, Aztec, Blackfoot, Cherokee, Chippewa, Choctaw, Comanche, Crow, Dakota, Hopi, Mohawk, Osage, Pawnee, Seminole, Shawnee, Sioux, Ute, Wyandotte, Yuma and Zuni. Sound familiar?

 

Next are examples of tribes with which I was unfamiliar are: Abanki, Bella, Coola, Caddo, Dene, Eyak, Fox, Gae, Hare, Ihak, Jemez, Kato, Lnuk, Mahican, Nde, Opata, Pipil, Qiripi, Red, Saponi, Tewa, Uchi, Ventureno, Walla Walla, Yaqui and Zapotec. Their PR firms must really be failures.

 

And where do they all live? An Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. All Indian reservations combined cover 55.7 million acres or 2.3% of the United States. 12 reservations are larger than the state of Rhode Island. The territory of the Navajo Nation compares in size with the State of West Virginia. The name "reservation" comes from the conception of the Indian tribes as independent sovereigns at the time the U.S. Constitution was ratified. Today, a little more than half of all Indians live off of the reservations, often in large western cities such as Phoenix and Los Angeles.

 

Gaming – In1979, the Seminole tribe in Florida opened a high-stakes bingo operation on its reservation in Florida. The state attempted to close the operation, but was prevented from doing so by the courts. In the 1980's, the case of California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians established the right of reservations to operate other forms of gambling. In 1998, Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which recognized the right of Native American Indians to establish gaming and gaming facilities on their reservations as long as the states in which they are located have some form of legalized gambling. Successful gaming operations on some reservations have greatly increased the economic wealth of the tribes, enabling their investment to improve infrastructure, education and the health of their people.

 

If you would like to learn more about Indian reservations, one of many sources is:

www.cr.nps.gov/nagpra/DOCUMENTS/RESERV.PDF

 

Did you ever wonder what causes earthquakes and how much damage they cause?

By David McClelland

Since moving to Michigan in 1978, I can recall only one earthquake (EQ) in this area and that occurred in Lake Erie in 1979. It caused a crack in a wall in my employer's building in Bloomfield Hills. I was in my auto at the time and didn't feel it.

What causes EQ's? An EQ is caused by the shaking of the ground due to an abrupt shift of rock along a fracture in the Earth, called a fault. Within seconds, an EQ releases stress that has slowly accumulated within the rock, sometimes over hundreds of years. Most EQ's are caused by slow movements deep within the Earth that push against the Earth's brittle, relatively thin, outer layer, causing the rocks to fracture suddenly. In 1871, Koto Bunjiro, a geologist in Japan, studying a 60-mile long fault whose two sides shifted about 15 feet in the great Japanese EQ of that year, was the first to suggest that EQ's are caused by faults.

Most EQ's occur at depths of less than 50 miles from the earth's surface. However, the deepest EQ's occur as deep as 400 miles below the surface.

The world's deadliest recorded EQ occurred in 1557 in central China. It struck a region where most people lived in caves carved from soft rock. Those dwellings collapsed during the EQ, killing an estimated 830,000 people. In 1976, another deadly EQ struck Tangshan, China, an important industrial city in northern China, and more than 250,000 people were killed.

In the United States, Florida and North Dakota have the fewest EQ's. Alaska and California have the most. Alaska averages seven per year. Alaska has an EQ with a magnitude of 8 or greater on the average of every 14 years. The 8 is a reading on the Richter Scale (RS) used to measure the magnitude of an EQ. It was developed by Charles Richter at the California Institute of Technology in 1935. What does an RS recording means? The 1906 San Francisco EQ had an RS reading of 7.8. The 1964 Anchorage, Alaska EQ had a RS reading of 9.2, a difference of over 125 times more energy being released which accounts for why the Anchorage EQ was felt over an area of 500,000 square miles. In terms of deaths, there were 700 resulting from the San Francisco EQ as opposed to 114 from the Anchorage EQ due to their relative populations at the time.

While in the Air Force, I was on Temporary Duty at Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage in 1964 shortly after that EQ and saw, what had been a large section of the downtown area, that was then just a huge, empty crater. I was impressed by the amount of damage an EQ can do.

To give you an idea of the number of EQ's in the United States per year and their magnitude, lets look at a sample of each 10th year since 1970:

Yr/Mag. 8 – 9.9 7-7.9 6-6.9 5-5.9 Total Est. Deaths

1970 0 0 4 48 52 0
1980 0 2 8 72 82 1
1990 0 0 2 64 66 0
2000 0 0 6 63 69 0
2010 0 1 7 55 63 0

Can we predict EQ's? An EQ prediction is a prediction that an EQ of a specific magnitude will occur in a particular place at a particular time (or ranges thereof).
Despite considerable research efforts by seismologists, scientifically reproducible predictions cannot yet be made to a specific day or month. For well-understood faults, seismic hazard assessment maps can estimate the probability that an EQ of a given size will affect a given location over a certain number of years. The ability to predict EQ's either on an individual basis or on a statistical basis is still remote.

We are fortunate to live in an area that has few EQ's.

Did you ever wonder where the most and the largest volcanoes are found?

By David McClelland

I am eliminating from my search, volcanoes on other planets and stars. Otherwise, I'd have to include Olympus Mons (OM) on Mars which is the largest volcano yet found in our solar system. It is nearly 400 miles wide and rises 16 miles into the thin Martian atmosphere. The area of the base of OM would almost cover the entire State of Arizona.

I've always been interested in volcanoes, but that interest intensified while on a 17-day visit to the relatively small country of Ecuador where I learned that there are 55 active volcanoes. An "active" volcano is defined as one that has erupted at least once in the last 100 years. There are 45 active volcanoes on the mainland of Ecuador and another ten on the Galapagos Islands. We flew over some of the ones on the mainland when we took a commercial flight from Quito to Guayaquil. Then, we took a driving trip and we stayed one night in a lodge at the base of the Tunguraqua volcano near Banos and could hear its rumblings all night. We found it comforting. By the way, Alaska has 41 active volcanoes, 30 of which are along the Aleutian Island chain.

I find it interesting to note that our Hawaiian Islands were formed on the tops of gigantic volcanoes above a hot spot in the Earth's interior. As the volcanoes grew, they were carried away from the hot spot as the Pacific Plate moved forward northwest at about 3 ½ inches per year. The fixed hot spot is currently beneath the southeastern part of the Big Island of Hawaii.

The largest volcano on Earth is Mauna Loa (ML) on the Big Island of Hawaii, both in terms of volume and height above its base. ML consists of about 19,000 cubic miles of lava and rises more than 50,000 feet above its base. Due to its mass, it has depressed the ocean floor by about 5 miles.

Remember the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State? It occurred on May 18, 1980 and lasted for about 9 hours. In that short period, more than 540 million tons of ash fell over an area of 22,000 square miles and changed the lives of thousands of people and converted a pristine forest area into a volcanic lava bed.

There are about 1,500 active volcanoes around the world and about 500 million people live close to active volcanoes. Indonesia has the greatest number of active volcanoes (86).

The current list of the ten largest active volcanoes are: 1 – Mount Mazama/Crater Lake, Oregon, 2 – Mount Etna, Sicily, 3 - Mount Vesuvius, Italy, 4 – Mount Tambor, Indonesia, 5 – Mount Krakatau, Indonesia, 6 – Mount Pelee, Martinique, 7 – Paricutin, Mexico, 8 – Mount St. Helens, Washington, 9 – Nevada del Ruiz, Columbia and 10 – Mount Pinatubo, Philippines.

Now, we all know a lot more about volcanoes. Leaning about them "blew" my mind.

Did you ever wonder about the most fun you've ever had?

By David McClelland

Harold Robbins' 1961 best selling book, The Carpetbaggers, was a box office hit movie in 1964. It starred George Peppard as Jonas Cord and Elizabeth Ashley as Monica Winthrop. In the movie, Jonas asked Monica, "What is the most fun you've ever had?" To which, Monica replied, "Well, I hope I haven't had it yet!"

That is a most interesting question and my survey of 100 people produced many and varying responses. Some of the most interesting responses are provided below:

Carolyn Johnson - Oakland Township: "Scuba diving off of The Galapagos Islands, 600 miles west of Ecuador, in the Pacific Ocean. The turtles were huge!"
Cindy Ramon(Age 2 ½) - Detroit, "Being with my mommy."
Melanie Hanley – Lake Orion- "My 13th birthday party. My two older sisters planned it all and it was so perfect. All of my friends were there to help me celebrate."
Shelly Smith - Pontiac, "My wedding and our honeymoon in Maui."
Rod Carpenter - Clinton Township, "White water rafting on New River, West Virginia."
Cynthia Fish - Barberton, Ohio, "Watching my first grandchild being born."
Gail Finn - Westland, "My hot air balloon ride in April. We were blown west, which is most unusual, and we had champagne when we landed. A hands down winner."
Jim Carron - Ann Arbor, "Being at the 1989 Rose Bowl parade and attending the Rose Bowl game where Michigan beat USC 22 – 14. Go Blue!!!
Christine Childers – Brown City – "We went to Disneyland in 1999 and I had my picture taken with "The Beast". You know, 'Beauty and the Beast'".
Karen Hibbler – Imlay City – "Snow Tubing in London, Ontario in 1997 with family."
Heidi Hulett – Almont – "Taking a weekend train trip to Chicago with my sister and a dozen of my closest friends for my bachelorette party. It was a blast."
Natalie Wordlaw – Metamora – "When I was dancing in 'The Nutcracker'".
Paul Abromaitis – "Playing hockey against the Red Wings alumni at Joe Louis Arena."
Terrie Prokopius –Royal Oak – "Getting a Hole-in-One while playing with 'three old guys' I didn't know."
Stacy Michalski – Sterling Heights – "Honeymooning is Jamaica."
Michelle Husk – Bartlett, Illinois – "Our trip to Las Vegas."
Donna Stenwell – Bloomfield – "Playing softball with my team."
Linda Brozovic – Harrison Township – "Sailing on the Caribbean while sitting on the netting of a catamaran."
Terri Johnson – "A windjammer cruise on the Caribbean."
Vikki Goldstein – Bloomfield Township – "Skydiving."
Carol Gonzales – Dearborn Heights – "Finding my biological parents."
Karen Sims & Karen Panetta – Roseville – Both – "Haunted Hayride."
Jennifer Cobb – Rochester Hills – "When my husband and I hosted our first Newlywed Game party on Valentine Day."
Finally, a lady who wished to remain anonymous, "Making love in a row boat."
What was the most fun that YOU have ever had? You have 60 seconds to respond.

Did you ever wonder which American jobs are the most dangerous?

 

By David McClelland

 

I wasn't sure, but wondered and did the research. What I learned surprised me.

I would have guessed that, in non-military jobs, it was construction workers, i.e., those who work on the highest buildings, the largest dams, etc. The Bureau of Labor Statistics listed fatalities (with fatalities per 100,000 workers in parens): timber workers (118) faced the greatest odds of losing their lives on the job.  Timber workers' fatalities were 30 times that of those in the typical workplace. Commercial fisherman (71) are the next most likely fatalities. Next, pilots and navigators (70). Then, structural metal workers (58), followed by driver-sales workers (38), which include pizza delivery drivers. Roofing (37) is the next most dangerous, followed by electric power installers (33), farm occupations (28), construction laborers (27.7),(my guess wasn't even close) and truck drivers (25). Underground mining jobs (23.5), still a dangerous occupation.

 

During a lifetime as a construction worker, one may expect to have three or four serious injuries that will keep one off of the job for more than three days each.

Apparently, the BLS doesn't include our military deaths during wartime. I checked the annual military death tolls just since the year 2000 and found that it averaged 1,159 deaths per year. That is far higher than even timber workers. Yes, we must all be thankful for the men and women who serve our country each year, many making the ultimate sacrifice.

Did you ever wonder how many different types of balls are used in sports?

By David McClelland

Before we look at all of the different sports and the balls used to play them, let me tell you about only those sports I have played that use balls. My first sport was baseball(1) because my dad had been a baseball pitcher in high school and in college and he would take me out to play catch from a young age. My second game was six-man football(2) which I began to play when I was about ten. I really enjoyed that. In six-man football, you have a center, a lineman on either side of the center and three backs; i.e., a quarterback and two running backs. I don't know if anyone plays that game today. I began to play basketball(3) later in grade school. In high school, I played only football, basketball and track. We also had baseball, for a total of four sports in my school, but I went out for track instead. Of course, at home we also played croquet(4). The sports that my school did not have could fill a book and included sports that are common in many high schools today; e.g., tennis, volleyball, wrestling, soccer, swimming and golf.

So far, you can see that the only balls I had used in sports through high school were the football and basketball. Let's move ahead about 50 years. Today, I play tennis(5), racquetball(6), squash(7), pickleball(8), volleyball (9), water volleyball(10), golf(11), bowling(12), pool/billiards(13), bocce ball(14), handball(15) and ping pong(16). We use balls in every one of those sports. For about 25 years, I also played slow-pitch softball(17).

Of course, not all sports use balls. Those that I can think of that don't use balls include ice hockey, field hockey, fishing, hunting, badminton, track, surfing, cycling, sports car racing, drag racing, motorcycle racing, wrestling, boxing, skiing (downhill, cross-country & jumping), ice skating & speed skating, snow boarding, bobsledding, martial arts, shooting sports, kick boxing, horseback riding/racing/rodeo and other equestrian events. Then, there are rock climbing, snow shoeing, disc golf, gymnastics, fencing, curling, roller skating/blading, roller derby, kite & model airplane flying, bungee jumping, sky diving, hot air ballooning, motorboat racing, sailboat racing, parasailing, archery, canoeing, swimming & diving, rowing, weightlifting, luge, kayaking, whitewater rafting, running, speed walking, wallyball, scuba diving, snorkeling, darts, horseshoes, hang gliding, bicycling, taboggoning and I'm sure there are many more. Our daughter coaches cheerleading and she said that many consider that to be a sport. It is clear that there are many more sports that don't use balls than those that do.

Sports that exist that I've never played that use balls include polo(18), cricket(19), rugby(20), dodgeball(21), lawn bowling(22) and lacrosse(23). That's 23 sports that I can think of that use balls. I'm sure there must be more. How many more can you name?

Did you ever wonder what is contained within The Museum Bronze in Auburn Hills?

 

By David McClelland

 

I visited this most unusual museum with the Men's Club from my church and was amazed by its content. It has a collection of more than 200 hand-made models that demonstrate both the precision building of machinery for mass production and its historical impact of the Industrial Revolution. It is an interactive and educational experience for all ages. The The Reid Family Foundation owner's representatives say that it is a must-see collection for history enthusiasts and automotive lovers alike and that it is the American Dream on display. A few examples of the models they have on display are  "The Kitty Hawk," "The Edmund Fitzgerald" and "The Stanley Steamer." To learn more, go to:            www.museum-bronze.com. I highly recommend that all schools consider a visit to this most unusual Museum.

 

It is a small museum that can handle groups of only 30 students or adults at a time.

To schedule a visit for your group, you may call 248-852-8764 or call the Museum Director, Sheri Reid Grant, at 248-766-3738. Ms. Grant said that, "We recently hooked up with the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills with a small display over the Holidays and plan to eventually have a permanent display there as well."

The Museum Bronze is generally open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday – Friday, but don't just drop by. Always call first to be sure someone will be there to assist you. If your group does schedule a visit, not only will a Museum representative be available to answer questions during your tour, but they will later take you into the back room for further discussions and a Question & Answer session. The entire experience is well worth your time.