Facts About Elephants | African Elephants & Asian Elephants

Elephants are the largest land animals on Earth. They have characteristic long noses, or trunks; large, floppy ears; and wide, thick legs. There are two species of elephant. The Asian elephant and the African elephant live on separate continents and have many unique features. There are several subspecies that belong to one or the other of these two main species, though there is disagreement over just how many subspecies there are.
Size
African elephants are the larger of the two species. They grow 8.2 to 13 feet (2.5 to 4 meters) from shoulder to toe and weigh 5,000 to 14,000 lbs. (2,268 to 6,350 kilograms), according to the National Geographic. Asian elephants can grow up to 6.6 to 9.8 feet (2 to 3 m) from shoulder to toe and weigh up to 2.25 to 5.5 tons (2,041 to 4,990 kg).

elephants, ivory, tusks, poaching

 Older elephants with larger tusks are becoming rarer due to their ivory.
Credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim, CC BY-SA
Habitat
African elephants live in sub-Saharan Africa, the rain forests of Central and West Africa and the Sahel desert in Mali. Asian elephants live in Nepal, India and Southeast Asia in scrub forests and rain forests.





Diet
Elephants eat grasses, roots, fruit and bark. They use their tusks to pull the bark from trees and dig roots out of the ground.
An elephant has an appetite that matches its size. An adult can eat 300 lbs. (136 kg) of food in a day, according to the National Geographic.

a herd of elephants from behind




 Extra large elephants are prone to health problems. But it's difficult to measure body fat on the huge creatures.
Credit: Alta Oosthuizen/Shutterstock.com
Habits
A group of elephants is called a herd. The herd is led by a matriarch, which is the oldest female. Females, as well as young and old elephants, stick together in a herd. Adult males tend to wander on their own.
Elephants also have certain rules. For example, when they are meeting each other, they expect the other elephant to extend its trunk in greeting. The matriarch will often teach young elephants in her herd how to act properly.
Offspring

Asian elephant calf

 Credit: DNP-Government of Thailand/WCS Thailand Program.
Male elephants are called bulls and females are called cows. After mating, the cow will be pregnant for around 22 months. When the baby elephant is finally born, it can weigh around 200 lbs. (91 kg) and stand about 3 feet (1 m) tall.
A baby elephant is called a calf. As the calf grows, it will gain 2 to 3 lbs. every day until its first birthday. By the time they are 2 or 3 years old, calves are ready to be weaned. Male calves will wander off on their own, while females will stay with their mothers. When they are 13 to 20 years old, they will be mature enough to have their own young. Elephants live 30 to 50 years in the wild.
Classification/Taxonomy
The taxonomy of elephants, according to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), is:
Kingdom: Animalia
Subkingdom: Bilateria 
Infrakingdom: Deuterostomia 
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Infraphylum: Gnathostomata 
Superclass: Tetrapoda 
Class: Mammalia 
Subclass: Theria
Infraclass: Eutheria
Order: Proboscidea
Family: Elephantidae      
Genera & species: Loxodonta africana (African savannah elephant), Loxodonta cyclotis (African forest elephant), Elephas maximus (Asian elephant)
Subspecies: ITIS recognizes: 
Elephas maximus indicus (Indian elephant)
Elephas maximus maximus (Sri Lankan elephant)
Elephas maximus sumatranus (Sumatran elephant)
Another possible subspecies is Elephas maximus borneensis (Borneo pygmy elephant). The World Wildlife Fund has determined that DNA evidence proves that the Borneo pygmy elephantis genetically different from other Asian elephants.

Elephant Poaching




 The male elephant Changila, shortly before poachers killed him near the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya.
Credit: David Daballen
Conservation status
According to the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Asian elephant is endangered. Though it is not known exactly how many Asian elephants remain, it is believed that the population is decreasing. The African elephant is considered vulnerable. Overall, its populations are increasing. According to the African Wildlife Foundation, there are around 470,000 African elephants roaming the globe.
Other facts
The African elephant can be identified by its ears. Stretched out, its ears are shaped like the African continent. Asian elephants have smaller ears, which are more rounded on top and flat along the bottom. Heat radiates out of the elephant's massive ears, acting as a cooling mechanism.
The largest elephant ever recorded was an African elephant, according to the San Diego Zoo. It was 24,000 lbs. (10,886 kg) and 13 feet (3.96 m) tall from its feet to its shoulders.
When it gets too hot, African elephants will suck water into their trunks and then blow it back out to shower themselves with a cool mist.
An elephant's trunk has more than 100,000 muscles, according to National Geographic. They use it to breathe, pick things up, make noises, drink and smell.
In the same way that humans tend to be right-handed or left-handed, elephants can be right-tusked or left-tusked. Their dominant tusk is easy to identify, because it will be more worn down than the less dominant tusk, according to the World Wildlife Fund. 
An elephant's skin can be as thick as 1 inch, but it is sensitive to the sun. To protect it, elephants will cover themselves in mud or dust.

Human Facts

1. If stomachs did not have a lining of mucus, your stomach would digest itself.
2. There are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.
3. It takes about 60 seconds for a human blood cell to make a complete circuit of the body.
4. The average person will shed 40 pounds of skin in his/her lifetime.
5. 1/15th of a pint of blood is pumped with every heartbeat.
6. Humans share 98.4% of our DNA with chimps. In comparison, we share 70% of our DNA with a slug.
7. The lightest baby to survive weighed a mere 283 grams.
8. On average, women say 7,000 words per day while men manage just over 2,000 words.
9. The human brain uses 20% of the body’s energy but is only 2% of the body’s weight.
10. On average, humans lose 40-100 strands of hair per day.
11. A sneeze can exceed the speed of 100mph.
12. A cough can reach the speed of 60mph.
13. The average person will drink about 16,000 gallons of water in his/her lifetime.
14. It takes 17 muscles to smile while taking 43 muscles to frown.
15. The human brain is composed of 75% water.
16. Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
17. More germs are transferred while shaking hands compared to kissing.
18. There are approximately 550 hairs in a person’s eyebrow.
19. The strongest muscle in the human body is the tongue.
20. A person produces 10,000 gallons of saliva in an average lifetime.
21. The hardest bone in the human body is the jawbone.
22. The number of eye blinks varies greatly from about 29 blinks each minute if you are talking to someone to only 4 blinks each minute if you are reading.
23. The average human blinks 25 times per minute.
24. A nail takes around 6 months to grow from base to the tip.
25. Each second 10,000,000 cells die and are replaced in your body.
26. Your liver performs over 500 functions in your body.
27. The average person spends 1/3 of their lifetime sleeping.
28. More germs are transferred when shaking hands than kissing.
29. The average person (from western culture) consumes 10 liters of alcohol per year.
30. Roughly 75% of people who play the radio in their car sing along to it.
31. Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
32. Your right lung takes in more air than your left one does.
33. The human brain is composed of 75% water.
34. 70% of the composition of dust in your home is made up of shed human skin and hair.
35. The tooth is the only part of the human body that can’t repair itself.
36. One human hair can support 3kg.
37. Humans are the only animals that cry tears and blush.
38. It takes the interaction of 72 different muscles to produce human speech.
39. If the normal one hundred thousand hairs on a head were woven into a rope, it could support a weight of more than twelve tons.
40. The fingernail grows about 1.5 inches per year.
41. The total amount of skin covering an adult human weighs 6 lbs.
42. The average person flexes the joints in their fingers 24 million times during a lifetime.
43. Each person inhales about seven quarts of air every minute.
44. On average, we breathe between 12 and 18 times a minute.
45. The average guy will grow about 27 feet of hair out of his face during his lifetime.
46. Approximately 1 out of 25 people suffers from asthma.
47. The average man sweats 2 1/2 quarts every day.
48. One out of every hundred American citizens is color blind.
49. An average person laughs about 15 times a day.
50. A human heart beats 100,000 times a day.

Birds that can talk!!!

Did you know that parrots can be trained to say up to 200 words and short phrases. In fact their ability to mimic human language is so well known that many parrot owners initially purchase the bird for this reason alone.
The truth however is that like most talking birds they’re not really talking but mimicking the sounds they hear around them. They certainly don’t have any real understanding of the words they repeat and what’s more interesting is that parrots as a species are not the best of the bird mimickers.
Mynah Bird
Yes that’s right the top word mimic is actually the Mynah bird. Their ability to create amazingly realistic human and non human sounds such as words, coughs, sneezes and even cell phone ring tones is well documented.
Other birds that are extremely intelligent and known to mimic human words are crows, ravens and jackdaws. Although their abilities are less publicized.

New IPhone 6

Can a Pill Increase a Woman's Libido? 5 Things That Affect Female Sex Drive

Women with low libido could soon get a "little pill" of their own that aims to improve their sex life. Last week, an expert panel voted to recommend that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approve a drug called flibanserin, which is touted as boosting women's desire for sex. If the FDA decides the drug is safe and effective, it could soon find its way into bedrooms across the United States.
Unlike Viagra, which causes more blood to flow to a man's penis, flibanserin doesn't just aim to improve a woman's physical readiness for sex. Instead, the drug purportedly works by amping up the brain's levels of dopamine and serotonin — two chemicals known to induce sex-related feelings, such as motivation, appetite and desire.
However, sexual desire is complicated, and some experts aren't sure that a pill is really the cure for an ailing female mojo.



"I'm skeptical [about flibanserin] as both a professional and as a woman," said Dr. Elizabeth Kavaler, a urologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "The libido in both men and women is very complex, and it's not going to be remedied with a pill."


There are lots of things that can quell a woman's desire to have sex, Kavaler told Live Science. These range from psychological factors, such as her self-esteem and mental health, to physical factors, such as her hormone levels and how well she's sleeping, Kavaler said.
In fact, researchers have conducted dozens of studies exploring the many reasons why a woman might not feel like having sex. Here are five reasons that women may not be in the mood:
1. She's in pain.
Several studies have explored the relationship between sex and pain in women. One study, published in 2009 in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, looked at women with dyspareunia — a condition that results in recurrent genital pain during intercourse and that's estimated to affect 8 to 21 percent of women worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The study found that women with dyspareunia have thoughts about pain that can be easily activated, said Lea Thaler, a researcher at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas who led the study. Shortly after that study's publication, Thaler told Live Science in an interview that women with the condition tend to be "hypervigilant about" (or constantly on the lookout for) pain during sex.
Although Thaler's study didn't focus on how this increased vigilance about pain may affect a woman's desire to have sex, other studies have explored the relationship between pain and libido. A 2014 study published in The Journal of Neuroscience found that female mice that are in pain are less motivated to have sex than female mice that are not in pain. The study also found that the same thing is not true for male mice, which were willing to copulate even when in pain.
The findings of this study could provide clues about how libido works in women, according to the researchers, who told Live Science that their findings could help scientists understand why women with chronic pain often experience a decreased desire to have sex.
2. She's on the pill.
Women who use hormonal contraceptives, such as the pill or the patch, are more likely to have a decreased sex drive than women who don't use hormonal contraceptives, according to a study published in 2010 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
The link between hormonal contraceptives and low libido needs to be explored further, said the authors, who noted that their findings are preliminary. Specifically, the researchers said they would like to study the effects of different dosages of estrogen and synthetic progestins (two types of hormones commonly used in contraceptives) on female sexual function.
In 2013, researchers with the European Society of Contraception and Reproductive Health conducted a systematic review of the literature surrounding the link between sexual desire and the use of combined oral contraceptives (which contain both estrogen and synthetic progestins). They reviewed 36 studies and found that, among the hormonal contraceptive users, 85 percent reported an increase in libido or no change in libido when taking these contraceptives, while 15 percent reported a decrease in libido. The researchers also found that women who reported a decrease in libido were taking contraceptives containing a lower dose of estrogen hormones.
3. She'd rather masturbate.
Although testosterone is the hormone most often associated with virility in men, this chemical may actually decrease a woman's desire to have sex (at least with other people), according to a study published in 2012 in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. The study, which found a link between higher levels of testosterone and decreased sex drive in women, also found that high-testosterone women were more likely to masturbate than low-testosterone women.
Interestingly, the researchers found that men's levels of testosterone did not affect sexual desire. The average man reported more sexual desire than the average woman, the researchers found.
4. She's just not that into you (anymore).
Women's desire may fade as a relationship goes on, according to a study published in 2012 in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy. Researchers polled 170 heterosexual men and women who had been in relationships for between one and nine months. They found that although most participants reported feeling satisfied with their relationships and sex lives, women reported lower levels of desire related to the length of their relationships.
Specifically, the researchers found that for each additional month women were in a relationship with their partner, their sexual desire decreased by a small amount — 0.02 points on the Female Sexual Function Index (a self-reporting tool that helps scientists study female sexual arousal, pain, satisfaction and orgasm). This finding did not hold true for men, whose sexual desire remained steady over time.
"When an individual has had sex with their partner over the course of many, many years, it takes creativity and openness to keep things fresh and exciting, Sarah Murray, one of the sex researchers who conducted the study at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, told Live Science. "Making time to be together and keep one's sex life as an important part of one's relationship is very important, and putting in effort and keeping things fun and interesting are crucial components."
5. She has a headache.
Women who get frequent headaches or migraines are more likely to have dysfunctional sex lives than women without these health issues, according to a study published in 2012 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. The study, which looked at 100 women being treated for headaches, found that 91 percent of the patients' scores on a questionnaire showed they had sex problems beyond what would be considered within the normal range.
Among these problems was low sex drive. About 17 percent of the women surveyed said they weren't interested in having sex, and another 20 percent of study participants said they not only had a low sex drive, but were also distressed about their lack of desire.
There are many possible reasons why headaches and low sex drive may be linked. Research shows that any type of chronic pain affects desire and arousal, and also that people with headaches often have mood disorders such as depression and anxiety, both of which have been shown to affect sex drive and sexual satisfaction. The medications taken to treat headaches, depression or anxiety can also interfere with a woman's desire to slip between the sheets.

Marketing

Marketing is communicating the value of a product, service or brand to customers, for the purpose of promoting or selling that product, service, or brand.
Marketing techniques include choosing target markets through market analysis and market segmentation, as well as understanding consumer behavior and advertising a product's value to the customer.
From a societal point of view, marketing is the link between a society's material requirements and its economic patterns of response.
Marketing satisfies these needs and wants through exchange processes and building long-term relationships.
Marketing Functions: Marketing have different functions such as Sales, Advertising & Brand Management, Research, Trade Marketing & Digital Marketing (Social Media Marketing is component / function of Digital Marketing).
Marketing blends art and applied science (such as behavioural sciences) and makes use of information technology.
Marketing is applied in enterprise and organizations through marketing management.

EARN MONEY 💵 FROM YOUR ANDROID MOBILE

The Earn Talktime app gives you free recharges  for downloading new apps. Now start earning Unlimited Talktime daily.
Special Bonus: Register today & win up to Rs.1,000 when you download your first app.
Click http://11034370.earntalktime.com




The Earn Talktime app gives you free recharges  for downloading new apps. Now start earning Unlimited Talktime daily.
Special Bonus: Register today & win up to Rs.1,000 when you download your first app.
Click http://11034370.earntalktime.com




The Earn Talktime app gives you free recharges  for downloading new apps. Now start earning Unlimited Talktime daily.
Special Bonus: Register today & win up to Rs.1,000 when you download your first app.
Click http://11034370.earntalktime.com


The Earn Talktime app gives you free recharges  for downloading new apps. Now start earning Unlimited Talktime daily.
Special Bonus: Register today & win up to Rs.1,000 when you download your first app.
Click http://11034370.earntalktime.com

Dinosaur-Era Bird Sported Ribbonlike Feathers

A bird with spotted, ribbonlike tail feathers once flew around the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, a new study finds. Until researchers uncovered the bird's 115-million-year-old fossilized remains in 2011, the scientific world had evidence of birds with ribbonlike tails living only in the Northern Hemisphere. Now, researchers have proof that these unique birds also lived in the Southern Hemisphere during this critical time of bird evolution.


Twin feathers

An illustration of the Cretaceous fossil of a bird that measured just 5.5 inches (14 centimeters) from head to tail. Researchers found the fossil in the Araripe Basin of Brazil.

Sitting pretty


A drawing of the 115-million-year-old fossilized bird uncovered in northeastern Brazil. Researchers are waiting to give the bird a new genus and species, but said it fits into the Enantiornithes group, which encompasses a large diversity of birds that lived during the time of the dinosaurs.

Fabulous fossil


The 2011 finding is now the oldest known bird from Brazil. The fossil shows exceptional preservation of the bird's ribbonlike tail feathers.

Brazilian map



A map showing where the researchers located the fossil.

Rock of ages


The 115-million-year-old Cretaceous rocks where the oldest complete bird from Gondwana was found. The ancient supercontinent Gondwana included Africa, Antarctica, Australia, India and South America.

Close call


An artist's interpretation of an Enantiornithes escaping the jaws of a toothy predator.

Rocky work


People search for new fossil specimens in the Cretaceous rocks of the Araripe Basin, Brazil. The fossils date from 100 million to 120 million years old.