Monday 5 August 2013

Animals & TV: Shark Week 2013


Image from Discovery Channel
Yes, it's that week of the year again! What's better than to sit on your sofa watching one of the most exciting animals in nature charging and thrashing over all your TV screen? None! Absolutely none!

Or maybe there is, and that is to read the English Playground and continue to expand our knowledge about this fantastic apex predator!

Exactly how much do you know about sharks though? Not much? Then you may want to watch the following 3 videos:





So myth debunked!

Myth 1: Sharks DO get cancers! So stop taking all those shark pills and hope that they can protect you from cancers too!
Image from www.FinishedWithFins.org

Myth 2: Shark fins are NOT nutritious and NOT delicious AND they DON'T have super healing powers. In fact, shark fins and meat have so much methylmercury in them as reported by the FDA in 2010 that eating them is just like taking in poisons into your body, damaging your brain with the neurotoxins if you are an adult and even causing dangerous threats to children and babies.
Image from Shark Attack
Myth 3: Sharks HAVE enemies! And the biggest one of them are humans!! We kill about 100 million sharks a year just to satisfy the Chinese stomachs! How stupid is this? When the sharks are gone, we'll be in troubles too! Remember those giant humbolt squids I have talked about? Don't want to be chewed apart by the ferocious humbolt squids when you go diving? Better keep the relatively much much calmer sharks in the water.

If you have subscribed to Discovery Channel on TV or YouTube, do pay attention to this week's amazing programmes!
Image from Locky's English Playground

Also, go to bbSharky's Facebook page and "Like" to support shark conservations!


Vocabulary:
apex -- (adj) figurative the highest point or most successful part of something:
debunk -- (vb) informal to show that something is less important, less good, or less truethan it has been made to appear:
methylmercury -- (n) (sometimes methyl mercury) is an organometallic cation with the formula [CH3Hg]+. It is a bioaccumulative environmental toxicant.
neurotoxin -- (n) are an extensive class of exogenous chemical neurological insults which can adversely affect function in both developing and mature nervous tissue.
ferocious -- (adj) frightening and violent:

Resources:
Shark Week 2013 begins today
http://earthsky.org/human-world/shark-week-2013-brings-new-sharks-and-live-talk-shows

3 Shark Myths Debunked @ YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8G47gJh1s0

Sharks and Cancer @ Shark Savers
https://www.sharksavers.org/en/education/biology/myth-sharks-don-t-get-cancer/

Shark Fin Soup is Not Healthy @ Shark Savers
https://www.sharksavers.org/en/our-programs/i-m-finished-with-fins/learn-more/shark-fin-soup-is-unhealthy/

Animal & Environment: Humboldt Squid Invasion @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.hk/2010/03/animal-environment-humboldt-squid.html

GREAT WHITE SHARKS HATE YOU  @ YouTube
http://youtu.be/dqSjSjSvUG0

Shark Awareness Day - This Day in History @ YouTube
http://youtu.be/6Gefs8Yt4uQ

Shark Week Playlist @ YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL634B47F925AF2AB5

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/apex_1?q=apex
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/debunk?q=debunk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylmercury
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotoxin
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/ferocious?q=ferocious+