The mascot for Ubuntu 10.10 is the Maverick Meerkat.

 

The meerkat or suricate Suricata suricatta, a small mammal, is a member of the mongoose family.

Meerkats live in all parts of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana and in South Africa.

A group of meerkats is called a "mob", "gang" or "clan".

A meerkat clan often contains about 20 meerkats, but some superfamilies have 50 or more members. Meerkats have an average life span of 12-14 years.

Meerkats are primarily insectivores, but also eat lizards, snakes, scorpions, spiders, plants, eggs, small mammals, millipedes, centipedes and, more rarely, small birds.

They are partially immune to certain venoms; they are immune to the very strong venom of the scorpions of the Kalahari Desert, unlike humans.[ They have no excess body fat stores, so foraging for food is a daily need.

Meerkats forage in a group with one "sentry" on guard watching for predators while the others search for food. Sentry duty is usually approximately an hour long.

Baby meerkats do not start foraging for food until they are about 1 month old, and do so by following an older member of the group who acts as the pup's tutor.

The meerkat standing guard makes peeping sounds when all is well. If the meerkat spots danger, it barks loudly or whistles.

Conservation status.

sources: Wikipedia

 

Custom Search

If you liked this article, subscribe to the feed by clicking the image below to keep informed about new contents of the blog:

Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook

Read More

CERN's main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research is the world's largest particle physics laboratory, situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva, established in 1954.

The organization has twenty European member states, and is currently the workplace of approximately 2,600 full-time employees, as well as some 7,931 scientists and engineers (representing 580 universities and research facilities and 80 nationalities).

CERN's main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research. Numerous experiments have been constructed at CERN by international collaborations to make use of them.

It is also noted for being the birthplace of the World Wide Web. The main site at Meyrin also has a large computer centre containing very powerful data processing facilities primarily for experimental data analysis, and because of the need to make them available to researchers elsewhere, has historically been (and continues to be) a major wide area networking hub.

As an international facility, the CERN sites are officially under neither Swiss nor French jurisdiction.Member states' contributions to CERN for the year 2008 totalled CHF 1 billion (approximately € 664 million).

Decommissioned accelerators.

* The original linear accelerator (LINAC 1).
* The 600 MeV Synchrocyclotron (SC) which started operation in 1957 and was shut down in 1991.
* The Intersecting Storage Rings (ISR), an early collider built from 1966 to 1971 and operated until 1984.
* The Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP), which operated from 1989 to 2000 and was the largest machine of its kind, housed in a 27 km-long circular tunnel which now houses the Large Hadron Collider.
* The Low Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR), commissioned in 1982, which assembled the first pieces of true antimatter, in 1995, consisting of nine atoms of antihydrogen. It was closed in 1996, and superseded by the Antiproton Decelerator.

If you liked this article, subscribe to the feed by clicking the image below to keep informed about new contents of the blog:

Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook

Read More

The White Desert (Sahara) is a unique geological phenomenon.

Custom Search

The White Desert is a unique geological phenomenon; where wind and water erosions sculptured their way through the soft chalk forming incredible shapes and silhouettes.

In its area, sprout several springs that supplied much of the needed water to the caravans. Walking through the White Desert is a monumental experience.

It is located in the Libyan Desert, approximately mid-way between Dakhla and Bahariya.

Farafra has an estimated 5,000 inhabitants (2002) living within its single village and is mostly inhabited by the local Bedouins. Parts of the village has complete quarters of traditional architecture, simple, smooth, unadorned, all in mud colour.

Local pride has also secured endeavours to secure local culture. Also located near Farafra are the hot springs at Bir Setta and the El-Mufid lake.

A main geographic attraction of Farafra is its White Desert (known as Sahara el Beyda, with the word sahara meaning a desert). The White Desert of Egypt is located 45 km (30 miles) north of Farafra. The desert has a white, cream color and has massive chalk rock formations that have been created as a result of occasional sandstorms in the area. The Farafra desert is a typical place visited by some schools in Egypt, as a location for camping trips.

If you liked this article, subscribe to the feed by clicking the image below to keep informed about new contents of the blog:

Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook

Read More