Social Science Questions & Answers

Almost every sailor has a tale to tell about strange beasts he has seen in the waters of the sea, and some have told of mermaids, creatures which are half human and half fish. Fairy stories have grown out of these tales, including the most famous of all, The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. But are there really such …

Mango showers are those experienced prior to the arrival of the monsoon. They are common in the states of Kerala, Karnataka and also some parts of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. These showers arrive generally in late April and May and are usually very difficult to predict by the meteorological department. The showers are said to aid in the ripening of …

There are two sub-tropical high-pressure belts extending approximately between latitudes 15 and 30 degrees to the north and south of the Equator. Horse latitudes are generally areas of high pressure marked by calm, subsiding air that gets heated during descent. It is said that Spanish sailors ferrying horses to the West Indies were usually stuck for months in these calm …

Gtor-ma cakes are sacrificial cakes used in Tibetan Buddhist ceremonies as offerings to deities. The unbaked cakes are prepared by kneading parched barley flour and butter into cones, decorated with pats of butter. The cakes form part of the phyi-mchod, or eight offerings of external worship, as well as part of the offerings of the five senses, which are considered …

Ground antbirds are tropical birds belonging to the family Formicariidae. They follow army ants and feed on insects, frogs, and lizards disturbed by the ants. They are native to South America.

In Greek mythology, the gigantes were a race of giants, children of Gaia or Gaea (Earth Mother) who was fertilized by the blood of Uranus when Cronus castrated him. The primordial Gigantes rose up in arms against the Olympians to end the reign of the Olympian gods but were defeated and buried beneath the Earth, where their writhing is supposed …

About 97 per cent of the energy we use in our homes and factories is generated from coal, oil and natural gas, which are called fossil fuels. These were fall formed from organic (once-living) matter. Coal consist of the remains of land plants, while oil and gas were formed from the remains of tiny plant and animals which lived in …

Floaters can be any of these things: Musca volitans: spots before the eyes caused by opaque cell fragments in the vitreous humour and lens of the eye; a debt instrument with variable interest rate tied to some other interest rate; a vagrant with no established residence or visible means of support; an employee who is reassigned from job to job …

Flatfish is a name given to a family of fishes which includes turbot, halibut, plaice and flounders. The flat fish have a very interesting feature which sets them apart from other fish. They have both eyes on one side of their heads. They are not born like this, but develop this feature soon after they are born. Why? Well, as …

Scales are the remnants of the bony armour which enveloped the very earliest fish. Fish have scales as a protective coating for the skin. In fact, not all fish have them. But we usually think of a fish as a cold-blooded, aquatic animal that swims by means of fins, breathes by means of gills, and is covered with scales. Scales …