Nature Voyagers

A coral outcrop on the  Great Barrier Reef ,  Australia Corals  are  marine invertebrates  within the  class   Anthozoa  of the  phylum   Cnidaria . They typically live in compact  colonies  of many identical individual  polyps . Corals species include the important  reef  builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete  calcium carbonate  to form a hard skeleton. A coral "group" is a colony of myriad  genetically identical  polyps. Each polyp is a sac-like animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter and a few centimeters in length. A set of  tentacles  surround a central mouth opening. An  exoskeleton  is excreted near the base.  Over many generations, the colony thus creates a large skeleton characteristic of the species. Individual heads grow by  asexual reproduction  of polyps. Corals also breed sexually by  spawning : polyps of the same sp...

Guanacos in Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia. Photo credit: Wayfaring Travel Guide Why make your next vacation a nature adventure? 1)  NATURE IS GOOD FOR OUR BRAINS Time in nature enhances our mental functioning, helping us focus and remember better. A 2009  Boston Globe article  tracked studies that demonstrate that hospital patients recover faster when they can see trees from their windows, and that women living in public housing are better able to focus when their apartment overlooks a grassy courtyard rather than concrete. Scientists theorize that even such fleeting glimpses of nature improve brain performance by providing a mental break from the cognitive processing demands of urban environments. Beech-maple forest, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Photo credit: National Park Service City dwellers, who are constantly impacted by visual and aural noise, find it harder to concentrate and are more prone to irritable moods and impulsive behavior. Ste...

photo:  Since they feed by grabbing and holding onto their prey, they have evolved sharp teeth for piercing and holding onto flesh, and powerful muscles to close the jaws and hold them shut. The teeth are not well-suited to tearing flesh off of large prey items as are the dentition and claws of many mammalian carnivores, the hooked bills and talons of raptorial birds, or the serrated teeth of sharks. However, this is an advantage rather than a disadvantage to the crocodile since the properties of the teeth allow it to hold onto prey with the least possibility of the prey animal escaping. Cutting teeth, combined with the exceptionally high bite force, would pass through flesh easily enough to leave an escape opportunity for prey. The jaws can bite down with immense force, by far the strongest bite of any animal. The force of a large crocodile's bite is more than 5,000 lbf (22,000 N), which was measured in a 5.5 m (18 ft) Nile crocodile, in the field; comparing to 335 lbf (1,490 N) f...