Instead of dashing down the nearest burrow when a snake approaches, adult squirrels indulge in a seemingly suicidal bout of snake-baiting – confronting, attacking and sometimes even killing the intruder. Recent work published in the journal Animal Behaviour (Vol 57, 1,301-10) by Ronald Swaisgood and his colleagues at the University of California, Davis, suggests that this apparent foolhardiness is in fact carefully calculated.While the only good snake is a dead one from the squirrels’ point of view, the risk in bringing this about varies from snake to snake. Big, hot snakes strike further, faster, more accurately and with less hesitation. They also inject more venom once the strike is home.
Given these predatory credentials, you might expect any self-respecting ground squirrel to give rattlesnakes a wide berth In fact they often do just the opposite. Rattlesnakes are the single most important predator of squirrel pups and a significant health hazard to adult animals. Although adult squirrels possess a degree of resistance to rattlesnake venom, the risk of nemesis increases, the bigger the snake and the higher its body temperature. If you happen to be a Californian ground squirrel, enemies don’t come much mightier than the northern Pacific rattlesnake.
AS ANY military strategist knows, when your enemy is superior, victory is all in the timing Pick your moment, and see how the mighty are fallen. Whoever controls the Moon’s oxygen will control the Solar System.. In 100 years’ time a “LunOx Corporation”, based at the lunar south pole could be the biggest company on or off the Earth. It’s just as rich in minerals, and it could make fortunes for as many people as Africa did.How long did it take the first settlers to reach Africa? The Moon is only three days away. It is the eighth continent, with a land area about the same size as that of Africa. However, the production of this metal is a complex process, not something that could be undertaken during the first phase of a Moon base.The Moon presents us with a new Africa to explore.
But oxygen can also be used as a rocket fuel, and its manufacture would be the life blood of the first viable lunar colony.Aluminium can be obtained from the feldspar mineral plagioclase, which is abundant in the lunar highlands. Aluminium has potential uses for building and construction, and perhaps even as rocket fuel. The value of oxygen made on the Moon in life support systems is obvious. It’s all there: aluminium, iron, hydrogen, helium and oxygen.Test rigs have successfully extracted oxygen from simulated lunar soil, using a simple and reliable furnace. Automated oxygen factories could even be sent to the Moon in advance of the next explorers.
Almost all that happens now are a few weak Moonquakes that occur at the extreme points in its orbit around the Earth.With the recent discovery of ice in the lunar dirt at the poles, there is in the lunar rocks everything required for supporting life and many profitable industries as well To build the first Moon base we need take nothing with us. Many of the most spectacular craters we can see on the surface were formed relatively recently in the Moon’s history. Apollo 17’s rocks tell us that the magnificent crater Copernicus was formed by an impact 810 million years ago; the crater Tycho is only 110 million years old. The Man in the Moon is 3 billion years old.In the last billion years or so the Moon’s interior has cooled, so that lava flows hardly ever occur and any modifications to the surface are by rare impacts with meteorites. They established the pattern of light and dark regions that we can see today on the lunar surface.
