Housefly

The common housefly is a flying insect that is found throughout the world. The genus and species of the housefly is Musca domestica. 

Like all insects, the housefly has a body divided into three parts (head, thorax, and abdomen), a hard exoskeleton, and six jointed legs. Flies also have a pair of transparent wings. The Housefly can taste using its feet and with its mouthparts. Adults are about 1/4 to 1/2 inch (6 - 12.5 mm) long with 13 - 15 mm wingspan. Houseflies are dark gray, with four dark stripes down the top of the thorax. They have sponging mouthparts (they cannot bite); houseflies can only eat liquids, but they can liquefy many solid foods with their saliva. 

The complete life-cycle of a housefly takes from 10 to 21 days. On the average, 12 generations of houseflies can be produced in one year. Adult females lay 120-150 tiny white eggs, usually in manure or other warm, moist, decaying organic matter. Female lives for about 2 1/2 months and can lay up to 1,000 eggs in her short life. The eggs are only about 0.04 inch (1 mm) long and hatch into white, worm-like maggots in about 12 hours. The maggots grow to be about 1/2 inch (12.5 mm) long. When they are this big, they burrow into the ground to pupate. An adult will emerge in about 5 to 6 days (in warm weather) or about a month (in cold weather). 

The housefly is often a carrier of diseases, such as typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery, and anthrax. The fly transmits diseases by carrying disease organisms onto food. It picks up disease organisms on its leg hairs or eats them and then regurgitates them onto food (in the process of liquefying solid food). 

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Kakadu National Park

Located 240 kilometres east of Darwin in Australia’s tropical north, Kakadu National Park is Australia’s largest terrestrial national park. Kakadu covers almost 20,000 square kilometres and is a place of enormous ecological and biological diversity. It extends from the coast and estuaries in the north through floodplains, billabongs and lowlands to rocky ridges and stone country in the south. These landscapes are home to a range of rare and endemic plants and animals, including more than one-third of Australia's bird species and one-quarter of its freshwater and estuarine fish species. 

Kakadu is considered a living cultural landscape. The traditional owners Bininj Mungguy have lived on and cared for this country for more than 50,000 years. Their deep spiritual connection to the land dates back to the Creation and has always been an important part of the Kakadu story. 

The extraordinary natural beauty and ancient cultural heritage of this land was recognised internationally in 1981 when it was first inscribed on the World Heritage list. Further land was added to the listing in 1987 and 1992. In 2011, the Koongarra land, which had previously been excluded from the listing because of its potential uranium resources, was added to the Kakadu World Heritage Area following decades of lobbying by Koongarra's senior custodian Jeffrey Lee. The land is now part of Kakadu National Park, protecting its significant cultural and heritage values for future generations. 

Today, the World Heritage-listed park remains well protected by a board of management, which has an Aboriginal majority representing the traditional owners. This arrangement showcases to the world how 'joint management' can combine ancient culture and modern practice. 

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Mudslides

Gravity and water play a role in causing mudslides. Hurricanes and other severe rain storms produce a lot of water in a short period of time. Soil on a steep slope becomes so wet that it is too heavy to stick to the underlying rock or soil. Gravity pulls the mud down the hill. The saturated soil flows much faster and farther than an ordinary landslide. The debris flow ranges from watery mud to thick, rocky mud that can carry large boulders and trees. Mudslides happen in places that are hilly or steep. Coastal areas with cliffs weakened by erosion can have mudslides when there is intense rainfall. Droughts, wildfires, and deforestation can destroy vegetation. There is a strong chance that these areas will also have mudslides during and after heavy rainfall. 

Mudslides can have devastating effects on people and landscapes. They bury houses, vehicles, crops, animals, and people. On average, mudslides cause 25 to 50 deaths each year. The tides of mud, trees, and boulders can sweep through villages and towns, destroying the vegetation along the way. When the flows reach flatter ground, the debris spreads over a wide area, sometimes collecting in thick deposits. The mud will stifle any plant and animal life beneath it. Places hit by mudslides are often declared disaster areas. Nothing will live there for a long time. A mudslide can leave a deep scar on a mountainside or hillside. This acts as a reminder of potential danger to those who live nearby. 

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Guns Should not be Sold to the Public

I strongly believe that guns should not be sold to the public for many reasons. They are very dangerous objects and only police should be allowed to use them. Selling more may lead to more massacres in Australia because they often fall into the wrong hands. 

To begin with, only police should be allowed to use guns. Many people do not understand how dangerous they are. Gun licences are too easy to obtain and this has resulted in many people owning them. Many people own guns illegally because the penalties are not very great. 

Furthermore, if we continue to allow guns to be sold, people will buy them, and some people may want to kill another person. There have been many shooting deaths in Australia, as demonstrated at Port Arthur in Tasmania. Martin Bryant used guns that he had bought from a gun shop to kill many people. Therefore, the selling of guns may culminate in more massacres. 

My final reason for not selling guns to the public is that they can fall into the wrong hands, and this can contribute to more deaths. Once, a small pistol fell into the hands of a six year old boy. He took it to school. Not knowing what he was doing, he shot one of his classmates. Due to this dreadful act, the little girl died in hospital. The pistol belonged to an eighteen year-old boy who was staying with the six year-old’s family. Although this happened in America, it could happen here. 

In conclusion, I am convinced that guns should not be sold to the public and must only be used by the police. 

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Tsunami

A tsunami is a fast-moving ocean wave or a series of waves. In the deep ocean, a tsunami is usually no more than one metre tall. When a tsunami reaches shallow water, it can grow as high as 30 metres.

An underwater earthquake, a volcanic eruption, or a landslide can trigger a tsunami. For example, when an earthquake happens, the sea floor shifts. This sudden movement creates a sea bulge that sends out a series of ripple-like waves. In the deep ocean, these ripples are very wide and low, and travel fast. They cannot be felt aboard ships, nor can they be seen from the air in the open ocean. 

A chain of tsunami waves can be very destructive. The pounding water can strip away sand from beaches and tear up trees and other vegetation. A tsunami can destroy coastal towns and villages. People can be swept away and drowned.

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Giraffe

Giraffes are the tallest land animals. A giraffe could look into a second-story window without even having to stand on its tiptoes! A giraffe's 6-foot-long neck weighs about 600 pounds. The legs of a giraffe are also 6 feet long. The back legs look shorter than the front legs, but they are about the same length. There is only one species of giraffe. The recognized subspecies include reticulated, Nubian, Uganda or Baringo, Masai, Angolan, and southern. The different kinds can be recognized by their spots and also by where they live in Africa. Masai giraffes, from Kenya, have spots that look like oak leaves. Other kinds have a square-shaped pattern that looks like the giraffe is covered by a net. Some zoologists think that the giraffe's pattern is for camouflage. Both male and female giraffes have two distinct, hair-covered horns called ossicones. Male giraffes use their horns to playfully fight with one another.

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