Polar Bears Have Black Skin

British spelling

Here are five of my short-form stories regarding the Universe and life. Enjoy.

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1/5

Polar bears have black skin.

Polar bears are the only carnivorous bears; their main food supply is seals, but they will also prey on larger animals such as walrus, narwhal, and beluga.

Cubs born at the same time can have different fathers, as females rarely mate more than once with the same male.

Litter size is commonly two cubs, but very rarely a female will give birth to four cubs.

The female's milk is as thick as double cream.

Life expectancy in the wild is rarely more than 30 years.

Considering their size and weight, they can run at an astonishing speed, up to 40 kilometres per hour, faster than any human.

They can also weigh up to 680 kilograms, or 1,500 pounds.

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2/5

Our species has a very short history.

When you consider the universe's age, the human species has existed for a very short time.

Scientists have estimated that the universe burst into existence 13.8 billion years ago.

One billion is a 1 followed by nine zeros.

In the young universe, there were no galaxies, stars, planets, or any other celestial objects like the ones we observe today.

The universe took vast periods of time to evolve.

Our spiral galaxy, the Milky Way, is roughly 13.6 billion years old, which is just a little younger than the universe itself.

Getting back to our species.

Now imagine this: scale the whole age of the universe down to one Earth year. At that scale, we humans arrived on the scene one minute before midnight on the last day of the year, which is December 31 at 11.59 pm.

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3/5

Do you give your existence any thought?

The odds against you being here are astronomical.

We can only imagine what our early ancestors were thinking as they gazed up at the night sky—were they curious as to what the heavens had to hide?

Now it’s very different, as we have developed sophisticated telescopes and other specialised scientific instruments that are helping to reveal some of the secrets the universe holds.

Simple life forms were living on our planet at least 3.5 billion years ago; since that time, billions of animal species have existed, and millions of species are still alive today.

The evolutionary path of life has been long, but at last, we have arrived. Our highly developed brain has given us intelligence and curiosity; now, we can try and make sense of our existence.

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4/5

I was once a planet.

I, being the dwarf planet Pluto.

Pluto had its planet title taken away in 2006, leaving eight planets in our solar system.

It failed to be classified as a planet because of this requirement: “It was not big enough to clear away other objects in its orbit around the Sun.”

Pluto is now known as a dwarf planet, with a diameter of 2,370 kilometres, which makes it smaller than our moon.

Although Pluto is travelling at an average speed of 10,600 mph or 17,096 kph, it still takes 248 Earth years to complete one journey around our local star the sun.

Pluto was found to exist in February 1930, and it will be 2178 before it finally makes a complete orbit of the sun since its discovery. That shows how extremely distant Pluto is.

The universe is amazing.

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5/5

The toughest organisms on Earth.

I am describing the near-microscopic Tardigrade.

Tardigrades live almost everywhere on Earth where water exists.

Tardigrades were discovered in 1773; they were found to have eight legs, each one tipped with four to eight claws.

Under dry conditions, tardigrades can expel nearly all the water in their bodies and enter a stage of dormancy that resembles death, called the tun state. Some species can survive in this state for up to 30 years.

For a limited time in the tun state, some can endure temperatures below -200 degrees Celsius or -328 degrees Fahrenheit and high temperatures of 150 degrees Celsius or 302 degrees Fahrenheit.

At sea level, water boils at 100 °C or 212 °F.

When conditions become more favourable, they hydrate, shake themselves off, and get on with the rest of their lives.

They have also survived mass extinctions.

The end

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You may find my easy-to-understand stories about the universe and life interesting and educational.

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Free to read. Regards.