KING COCONUT (THE MAGICAL WATER )

 

King Coconut is a type of Coconut which native to Sri Lanka. It is a popular fruit in the world, and it has many benefits. Scientific Name is Cocos nucifera var. aurantiaca. King Coconut water has sweet taste. King Coconut is an orange colour coconut and Sri Lankan people called it as “Thembili”.

King coconut has liquid edible endosperm (King coconut water) and solid endosperm which is called kernel. King coconut kernel is a delicate spongy material which is rich in antioxidants, flavonoids and phytochemicals.

King coconut water is nutritional beverage which contains sugar, vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. King Coconut water is a perfect drink that helps to keep human body rehydrated. Also, it can delay exhaustion. Further, it can be used as a refreshing drink to balance body electrolytes. King coconut is rich in Vitamin C, So it can be used as a dietary antioxidants. It directly influence on rapid intestinal absorption. Other than that, King coconut water helps to blood sugar restoration.

King coconut water has anti-aging effects to the skin. Magnesium maintains low blood sugar level against the type 2 Diabetes. It good at blood circulation in the kidneys. That causes to profuse diuresis. Further, king coconut water affect cardio protection. Therefore, King coconut water is identified as a medicine. It keeps the body away from diseases. And, develops internal functions of the human body. King coconut water is relaxation beverage in the sunny days. It has a cool effect that keep a healthy body. Further, King coconut water is used to make Vines. Also, it is added to various meals. Therefore, it is difficult to identify King coconut as a fruit. It is a medicine as well.

In Sri Lanka, King coconut is mostly cultivated in Kurunegala, Gampaha and Galle districts. Sri Lanka is a popular country for King coconut. King coconut water is exported as a beverage. There is a good demand from other countries.

TYPE OF NERVOUS SYSTEMS IN ANIMALS

   

         During the course of evolution, nervous systems have become more complex. This is largely because animals have become larger and more mobile, requiring more neurons than a sedentary animal. The most fundamental function of aa nervous system is,

• To receive a stimulus
• Transmission of a stimulus to a central “brain”
• Interpretation and analysis of the stimulus
• Proper response by effectors

                       with the evolution of a complex nervous system and bilateral symmetry, cephalization (formation of a head) has taken Place, and the ganglia in  the head became large enough to called a brain, which is the main nervous control center of the body.

there are several type of neural organization in the animal kingdom. In the unicellular from, the single cell functions both as receptor and effector, there are no structural specializations.

In the cnidarians (Coelenterates) specialized cell are found in the body which functions as neurons or nerve cells. These neurons are multipolar and non-myelinated and organized in the from of a diffused nerve net. This nerve network is located in the body wall (mesoglia)

In platyhelminthes a more complex nervous system basically resembling a ladder is present. In its basic from, a nerve ring or pair of cerebral ganglia is present in the anterior end of the body. The neurons of cerebral ganglia is present in the anterior end of the body. The neurons of this nervous system are non-myelinated. From this nerve ring two lateral solid nerve cords originate and passes towards the posterior end of the body. These two lateral nerve cords are connected by several transverse nerves which give a ladder like structure. Therefore platyhelminthes have a rudiment of a central nervous (brain and nerve cords) and peripheral nervous systems (transverse nerves). 

 

RESPIRATORY STRUCTURES IN ANIMALS

                           The simplest respiratory is surface, is the body covering. You may have noticed that some animals are small and shaped in a way that allow the body surface of the animal to be the gas exchange surface. However, as animals, as animals become bigger and complex their body surface to volume ratio gets decreased. Therefore, gaseous exchange through their body surface by simple diffusion become inefficient. Thus, s

MEDICINE

                      The practice of medicine is based on diagnosis and treatment. A hundred years ago, the physician felt the pulse and came to various conclusions about illnesses.
             He had only a few instruments to diagnose a disease. Within the last hundred years, medical technology developed. Now the physician has sophisticated medical instruments to diagnose diseases.
              X ray machine that was invented in 1895, came into regular use.

            Medical technology continues to develop very rapidly. Today the changes of the body can be observed and measured.      These findings are the key to diagnosing diseases and deciding treatment.

                   The E.C.G machine was invented during the last century. It is used to find how the heart works. The damage caused by a heart attack can be measured on this machine.

                Modern technology is able to support failing organs. Ventilators are used to maintain oxygen levels to assist breathing.

           Sir Alexander Fleming, whose discovery of penicillin led to the discovery of many other antibiotics. The antibiotics help in treating a large range of bacterial infections. 
                                  Modern technology has helped immensely to develop surgery. Now lasers are used in surgery. Kidney stones and gall bladder stones are removed through laser surgery. Laser treatments are used for treating eye diseases too.
      Medical science and technology has developed so much that surgeons transplant organs from one body to another. Kidney transplantation was first attempted in 1902. Today it is a well established operation. Heart transplantation was first performed in South Africa, in 1967. It was done by the surgeon, Christian Barnard.
                                          Immunization programmers are carried out to give protection to children. This has greatly decreased previously common diseases. 

ENCYCLOPAEDIA

 

                        The encyclopaedia has developed from the dictionary in the 18th century. A dictionary is mainly on worlds and their definitions. It provides limited information, for the word defined. Sometimes the definition given in the dictionary may not give enough understanding of the word to the reader. He may not understand the meaning, or significance of the word. He may not understand the broad meaning.
                An encyclopaedia is a complete summary of information. This information can be on all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge.
               An encyclopaedia on the other hand gives a full account on the subject. It gives the most relevant knowledge gathered on that subject. It often includes maps, illustrations, charts. as well as statistics to show relationships.
             The word "encyclopaedia" comes from the classical Greek word meaning, " a general education" The idea of producing an encyclopaedia is very old. The term was first used in 1541.

• Britannica
• wikipedia
• Encarta

OUR FOOD

      What we are eat decide how we grow. If you eat good, wholesome, nutritious food you will grow up healthy and strong.

           You must have healthy food that has all the main nutrients. You need carbohydrates like rice, potatoes or bread. There is starch in these types of food. Your body can turn the starch into energy to give you brain power for you work and muscle power for sport.

Proteins are necessary to build strong muscles and firm flesh. These are found mainly in fish, egg, nuts, green vegetables and meat. We also need a smaller amount of fat as in margarine, butter and cooking oil. Calcium in milk builds strong bones and teeth. Iron in spinach and other dark green vegetables is good for our blood.

                The important vitamins, vitamin A, B, C, D and E we find mainly in fresh fruit, vegetables, brown rice, brown bread and fish oil. Vitamins help us fight diseases. They keep our eyes, hair, skin and teeth in good condition.

            Yet vitamins and other important things in food can often be destroyed if the food is boiled or fried too much. Vegetables must be washed carefully. Then they should be cooked only for a very short time. Fruit, again carefully washed with clean water, is best eaten raw.

                             Many people nowadays eat too many sweet things. Biscuits, cakes, sweets, chocolates and ice-cream all contain too much sugar. Sugar is a carbohydrate and some of it can be turned into energy, but too much sugar is ban for your skin, makes your body fat and gives you toothache. If you have too much sugar over a long time, you may even lose all your teeth

Vitamins

• We need vitamins for healthy growth of our body.
• They are best taken by the way of food.
• If you are healthy you are not in need of vitamin tablets or syrups.
• Vitamin preparations are needed only when you are in a vitamin deficiency.
• If you take vitamin tablets unnecessarily there is a risk of overload of vitamins.
• Vitamin overload can cause symptoms like headache, hair-loss and skin rashes.

Human Blood Circulation

Imagine being smaller than the period at the end of the sentence. Imagine being microscopic! Suppose you are almost as tiny as a red blood cell. Picture your self inside a human heart. You are about to take a guided tour of a human circulatory system.

                Your tour being in the right at rium of the heart. It is a dark chamber with thin walls. Wow……..Is it crowded! Millions of blood cells are in the right atrium with you. Most of the cells are about your size. The guide says that, they are red blood cells “Each one is shaped like a doughnut with no hole. Most have no nucleus. Every red blood cell carries a load of carbon dioxide”

                The large cell with nuclei are white blood cell “the guide continues” what are the disk shapes?” you ask “They are platelets,” the guide answers, “and the yellowish, watery substance around you is plasma.”

Renal diseases are on the rise

What is kidney failure?

               Kidney is the organ that purifies the blood and is responsible for filtering blood, removing waste and making urine to keep the body’s water and salt balance in check. When the kidney stops functioning this process can not go on.

 

What is the role of the dialysis machine?   

                              When the patient’s kidney ceases to function, the machine will play the role of kidneys. The machine will take the blood in and send it through an artificial kidney which the blood, and send it to the patient.

Cell (The fundamental unit of life)

Latin world for cell is "cellula" which means 'a little room'.The word 'cell' has derived from the above Latin word 'cellula'.The British botanist Robert hooke while examining a bottle cork under the microscope made by himself, observed room like structutes as in a honey comb. He named the little rooms of the honey comb as cells. Actually he has  seen only the cell wall.
                              All the living organisms are made up of cells. There are some organisms of which the body is made up of only one cell. They are called unicellular organisms. Organisms with more than one cell are multi cellular organisms.

                            It was MATTAIAS SCHLEIDEN in 1838 who first proposed the idea that all plants consist of calls.

Virus

Viruses are not actually cells. They do not need food as a source of energy. The only living process occurs in virus is reproduction; but they can not reproduce independently.

                                          Virus have a coat of protein enclosing a strand of nucleic acid. Only one nucleic acid is found in a virus. That can be either DNA or RAN. DNA is Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid. And RNA is Ribo nucleic Acid. Viruses infect and take over the biological machinery of cells to reproduce new viruses. Viruses are totally parasitic. Chicken pox, measles, aids, common cold, influenza are some diseases caused by viruses.                                                  

Protozoa

Amoeba

Protozoa are unicellular organisms. Protozoa can be subdivided in to Rhizopods, Ciliates, flagellates and sporozoans.

                  Rhizopods can move by means of pseudopodia. They also catch their prey by means of these catch their prey by means of these pseudopodia.

  

eg. Amoeba.

 

Microscopic hairs called cilia are present around the cell in ciliates. They use these cilia for feeding and movement. Paramecium is an example for ciliates.

FUNGI

Most fungi are multi cellular. Yeast is an exception and it is a unicellular fungus. Multi cellular fungi are made up of hyphae. Hyphae are fine thread like structures.

                          No chlorophyll is present in fungi. Fungi are saprophytic, parasitic or symbiotic. Saprophytic means living on dead organic matter.                                 

                     Parasitic means grows feeds and shattered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing, to the survival of its host. Symbiotic means helping each other for nutrition.(mutually advantageous) eg. Lichens are a symbiotic partnership between algae and fungi.

                                     Yeast feed by changing sugars into alcohol, a process known as fermentation. 

     

ALGAE

Some algae are unicellular i.e. their bodies are composed of only one cell. They can only be seen under a microscope.

                  The largest algae are giant seaweeds some of which grow to over 50 meters long. They contain the green pigment chlorophyll and can produce, food by photosynthesis.

                              Green algae are formed in the sea, in fresh water, and in damp places on land. They occur as single cells, hollow bellow of cells, and fine threads.

Green Alga

                                              

Algae are of four types.

 

Rad Alga

01.   Green algae

02.   Brown algae 

03.   Red algae

04.   Diatoms

 

Diatoms are microscopic, single celled algae whose cell walls are made of silica.

 Some examples for green algae are,

 

                    01. Chlamydomonas  
                02. Ulva    
                03. Spirogyra

Ulva

           
          

BACTERIA

It was Anton Van Leuwanhoek in 1683 who observed bacteria with the help of his self constructed compound microscope. Bacteria are found everywhere in air, water, soil, food in living organisms such as the intestines of man and animals, on dead decaying organic matter, etc.

Bacteria are single celled organisms or made up of chains or clusters of similar cells. Bacteria has no distinct nucleus. The nucleus is not bounded by a nuclear membrane, i.e. bacterial cell is prokaryotic. Chromatin material is present in the central region. Nucleolus is absent. Bacterial cell have a cell wall composed of mainly chitin. A thin layer called capsule surrounds the cell wall.

    Mitochondria and chlorophyll are absent. Reserve food is glycogen. On the basis of general shape four main types of bacteria are recognized

 They are:    1.   Coccus    
                      2.   Bacillus   
                      3.   Spirillum
                      4.   Vibrio              
   

Greenhouse effect

What is the greenhouse effect..? This is a common word used by the environmentalists, scientists and many others who are interested in protecting the earth for the next generation and for many more generations to come.

                   The greenhouse effect is nothing strange. It is natural process that occurs and helps to heat the earth’s surface and the atmosphere. If not for the greenhouse effect the temperature on this earth world be minus eighteen degrees centigrade rather than the present fifteen degrees centigrade. We would have frozen to death if not for the greenhouse effect.
        If that is the situation why is everyone talking about the greenhouse effect, global warming and climatic changes? It is because of the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Let us see what has actually happened.
                                    51% of the energy from the sun’s rays that reaches the surface of the earth is used for many processes including heating of the earth’s surface, melting ice, evaporation of water and photosynthesis. The balance energy is expected to be reflected into space. But this does not happen due to the presence of greenhouse gases like Carbon dioxide. Methane, Nitrous Oxide etc. These gases trap the excess, out going heat energy and additional heat is added to the earth’s atmosphere.
             How have humans contributed to this phenomenon? The industrial revolution, development and also human interference with nature have caused a great amount of greenhouse gases to be emitted into the earth’s atmosphere.

                   Scientists have predicted that the greenhouse effect will be enhanced. It is not yet confirmed but there are doubts as to whether Global Warming and the climatic changes are due to the greenhouse effect. There is a lot of research being done and many countries have started working on reducing the amount of carbon emission into the atmosphere. Even in Sri Lanka if you go to a petrol station you can see a board on every petrol pump which reads 90 octane petrol lead free which is environment friendly.

              Carbon dioxide levels are expected to rise further due to the ongoing burning of fossil fuels. The rate of rite will depend on the usage and the availability of fossil fuels.

               The increase in global temperature can in turn cause other changes like rising sea levels, creating extreme weather conditions, changes in agricultural fields. glazier retreat, species extinctions and the increase in breeding of disease carrying insects like mosquitoes.

    

                       

Books

We have brought some pictures of books too. Books, are the most important sources of knowledge. We have learnt many things from books. As little children, we loved to read fairy tales and other story books.
                 Now we have read stories, poems, histories, repots, biographies, adventures, everything in books. We have learnt about our country, and other countries from books. We have read about things we have never seen or heard before.
                                                           Books give us not only knowledge; they give us entertainment too. The Tales of the Arabian Nights, tell us of strange adventures. They keep us awake with curiosity. Aesop’s fables tell us of folk tales of many lands. The fairy tales delighted us in our childhood. Now we have the Harry Potter Series. Some time back we had the Enid Blyton stories.
                                                    Each religion has its own books too. The Christians have the Bible, the Muslims have the Quran, the Hindus have the Vedas, the Buddhists have the Dhammapadaya. The Mahavamsa, is considered the oldest record of history of Sri Lanka.
                                                  When we are free, we spend our time with books in the library. When we are ill, and in bed how would we spend our time if we didn’t have a story book? Books and knowledge are inseparable are inseparable in our life.

VIRUS AND CANCERS...?

                 Cancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth, invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood).Cancer may affect people at all ages, even fetuses. Cancer causes nearly 13% of all death around the world.

                                          There are many causes for cancer for cancer including chemical carcinogens, ionizing radiations, viral or bacterial infections, hormonal imbalances, immune system dysfunction and heredity.

Some cancers can be caused by infection with pathogens. There are many cancers that originate from a viral infection, and these viruses are responsible for 15% of human cancers worldwide. Many viral oncogenes have been discovered and identified to cause cancer. (An oncogene is an agent associated with cancer).Oncoviruses come in tow different forms: viruses with a DNA genome, and viruses with a RNA genome.

                                           There are many examples of DNA viruses in the world. Homan Papilloma Virus (HPV), is a DNA virus, which causes transformation in cells through interfering with tumor suppressor proteins such as p53. It cancers in cervix, skin, anus mouth, and may be lung cancer. Human herpes virus 8 is associated with Kaposi’s sarcoma, a type of skin cancer. Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) is associated with four types of cancers and they are Burkitt’s lymphoma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, B lymph proliferative disease and nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

                                            There are RNA viruses too which can cause cancer. Hepatitis Virus causes Hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer).Human T cell leukaemia virus1 (HTLV1) cause adult T cell leukemia.
                             Mainly the DNA viruses insert their information directly into the cells of their hosts, although the Epstein Barr virus instead appears to exist in multiple copies as nucleic material known as a plasmid in the host cell’s nucleus, separate from the host DNA. The RNA viruses such as the HTLV 1 virus require first that their genetic information be transcribed into DNA by using the enzyme reverse transcriptase, supplied by the virus.
                              The oncogenic mechanism is ether to insert additional oncogenic genes in the host DNA, or to enhance already existing oncognic genes in the genome. These oncogenic  are best characterized in the genomes of oncogenic RNA viruses.
            Some oncogenic retroviruses (RNA viruses causing cancers) insert their genomic material into the host cell and use reverse transcriptase enzyme to make new DNA. This DNA is then incorporated into the cell DNA along with Powerful Promoter Sequences (LTRs) that Promote transcription Of the Viral DNA to reproduce more Viruses. Sometimes the Viral DNA incorporates a section of the host DNA which contains genes for growth promotion. These types of genes are called proto oncogenes in their normal state, which become oncogenic once incorporated into the viral DNA because of the increased transcription caused by the viral LTRs. This is the causes for the increased growth of the infected cell, leading to cellular proliferation and the tumor formation. A large number of oncogenes have been discovered in the genomes of transforming retroviruses. 

                  Other oncogenic retroviruses transform cells by integrating into the host gene near a proto oncogene. If the viral LTRs are close enough to that oncogene, they will up regulate transcription not only of the viral DNA but of the proto oncogene nearby, causing growth, cell proliferation and by consequence tumor formation.