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Bats often make people think of vampires, creatures of the night, and Halloween. Beyond the myth and folklore, bats are one of the most important groups of animals.

Bats are mammals that belong to the order Chiroptera (ky-rop-tera), which means, "winged hand". The wings or hands of a bat have very long finger bones covered by a strong skin. Bats are the only mammals that can fly. Like all mammals, they are "warm-blooded", have bodies covered with fur, and nurse their young (pups) with milk.

Nearly all bats are helpful animals. In fact, tropical rainforests could not survive without bats. Bats are responsible for controlling pest insect populations, pollinating flowers, and dispersing seeds.

Worldwide sales of music CDs, records and cassettes fell for the third year in a row

rising Internet piracy in the United States,

7 percent drop in global music sales

Bats are not flying mice; they are not even remotely related to rodents. Bats are such unique animals that scientists have placed them in a group all their own, called 'Chiroptera’, which means hand-wing. Bats are grouped with primates and lemurs in a grand order called Archonta.

Bats are not blind. Most bats can see as well as humans. Fruit bats have eyesight that is adapted to low-light, much like cats. Fruit bats also see in color.

If a bat swoops toward you, it’s probably after the mosquito that is hovering just above your head -  not your hair.

well, almost. More often than not, the minimum age requirement for skydiving is 18 years old. However, there are some places that allow 16-year olds to participate in the sport.

First of all, if this is your first time sky diving, you will be given a lecture about the sport that would last for at least 4 hours.

One unique feature of bats is their modified forelimbs, which support a wing membrane (patagium). The basic elements of the mammalian limb are present in bats, although the relative sizes of most bones and muscles differ from those of nonflying mammals. The most elongated parts of the limb are those of the hand (metacarpal bones) and fingers (phalanges). The primary functions of these bones in bats is to provide support for the patagium and control its movements.

Numerous blood vessels and nerves are present throughout the wing membrane. Bats also have five unique muscles present in the patagium, and use additional muscles in the chest and back to move the wings up and down.

The most obvious difference between bird wings and those of bats is that bird wings are made of feathers, not a skin membrane. Birds have an elongated arm, but do not have elongated fingers like bats. Additionally, the muscles used in both the upstroke and downstroke are found in the chest of birds, while the upstroke muscles are on the back in bats (Fenton, 1983).

Small and furry, bats are the only mammals to have achieved powered flight.

Their arms are spindly, with membranes stretched between the fingers on each hand.

Despite their resemblance to rodents, bats are not closely related to mice at all. Though their exact placement is still uncertain, there is recent evidence that they may be more closely related to the primates.

THE second order of mammals includes the Bats, or Chiroptera, literally hand-winged animals

As in the Primates, in which order the Bats were formerly included, there are four kinds of teeth, incisors, canines, premolars, and molars, the milk-set being followed by the permanent.

The bat is more closely related to primates.

Bats are fantastic fliers. They are able to truly fly. Bats are the only mammals able to have powered flight.

A bat's body is made for flight. The neck is short, the chest is large and the stomach is narrow. In order to fly a body must have a wide, thin surface. It also needs the power to push through the air.

Born on January 4, 1809, Coupvray, France, Braille was accidentally blinded in one eye at the age of three. Within two years, a disease in his other eye left him completely blind.

Captain Charles Barbier invented sonography, or nightwriting, a system of embossed symbols used by soldiers to communicate silently at night on the battlefield. Inspired by a lecture Barbier gave at the Institute a few years later, the fifteen-year-old Braille adapted Barbier's system to replace Haüy's awkward embossed type, which he and his classmates had been obliged to learn.

In his initial study, Braille had experimented with geometric shapes cut from leather as well as with nails and tacks hammered into boards. He finally settled on a fingertip-sized six-dot code, based on the twenty-five letters of the alphabet, which could be recognized with a single contact of one digit. By varying the number and placement of dots, he coded letters, punctuation, numbers, diphthongs, familiar words, scientific symbols, mathematical and musical notation, and capitalization. With the right hand, the reader touched individual dots and, with the left, moved on toward the next line, comprehending as smoothly and rapidly as sighted readers. Using the Braille system, students were also able to take notes and write themes by punching dots into paper with a pointed stylus which was aligned with a metal guide.

Teachers at the Royal Institute taught French Sign Language (FSL). In 1816, an American educator of the deaf, Thomas Gallaudet (1787-1851), returned to the United States after studying the French techniques at the Royal Institute.

ASL is not the only form of sign language. Fingerspelling is one method in which hand-shapes (representing letters) are used to spell out each word of the English language while speaking. It is an unpopular method of communication and is tiring to use and interpret.

The Chesapeake Bay, forexample, has been polluted with the nutrients nitrogen andphosphorus and with excess sediment caused, in part, by urbanrunoff. The excess nutrients cause algae blooms that blocksunlight from reaching bay grasses-which are a source of food,shelter, and nursery grounds for many aquatic species.

In aneffort to control nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake Bay, theExecutive Council of the Chesapeake Bay Program" established agoal to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus entering theChesapeake Bay by 40 percent, including through control of runofffrom urban areas.

Looks like a pillar of iTunes content might be on the brink of collapse -- Universal Music, the world's largest music business, has officially opted not to renew its contract with Apple for vending music on the iTunes Music Store. We don't know specifically what caused Universal to turn away -- perhaps it's the weight of the rising anti-DRM movement among consumers, or perhaps it's because of Stevie J.'s brash negotiating tactics, continual refusal to hand over iPod cash, or oceanic persistence in keeping tracks locked in at $0.99. Whatever the reason, we can't say we're all that surprised; Universal's been a pain in Apple's ass for years now. So what's the end result? Well, Universal music will still be sold through iTunes at will, so that means consumers can keep buying tracks for the time being, but Apple runs the risk of losing Universal's content on very short notice if the companies don't make happy with one another and put pen to paper once more.

n the battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Ieyasu defeated the Hideyori loyalists and other Western rivals

Every daimyo was also required to spend every second year in Edo.

On the other hand, he enforced the suppression and persecution of Christianity from 1614 on.

They give the order Chiroptera its name (literally, "hand-wing"), and functional wings and true flight are characteristics of all bats.

The wing membrane is an extension of the skin of the body. It is made up of external epidermis and an internal layer of dermis, which contains blood vessels (easily seen in a live bat when the wing is stretched in front of a light) and muscles.

Adapted from Dinosaurs: The Very Latest Information and Hands-On Activities From the Museum of the Rockies, by Liza Charlesworth and Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer. A Scholastic Professional Book. The last dinosaurs died approximately 65 million years ago. Although the cause of their extinction is still a mystery, climatic change, diseases, changing plant communities, and geologic events could all have played a role. Lately, dinosaur extinction theories have been the subject of much debate and controversy. A recent explanation, supported by many scientists, suggests that dinosaurs died out soon after a huge meteorite crashed to Earth near the Gulf of Mexico. A giant meteorite, they reason, could have landed with an impact that kicked up enough dust and debris to block out sunlight for a long time — leading to a deadly chain of events. Without the sun, all the plants died; without the plants, all the plant-eaters died; and without the plant-eaters, all the meat-eaters died. Sounds reasonable. But there is one problem with this theory: Paleontologists have not yet been able to find dinosaur skeletons in rocks dating to the period of impact. Some evidence even seems to indicate that all the dinosaurs had died before the meteorite hit. What is the answer? As paleontologists search for clues to support their theories, they agree to disagree.

To the behaviourist about clocks, a clock is simply something with such time-indicating exterior parts

The inner workings of any clock are entirely irrelevant to its status as a clock, provided they produce (or at least don't interfere with) the movement of the hands. The anti-behaviourist, by contrast, thinks of a clock as an inner mechanism which, in favourable circumstances, can cause some exterior parts to move in a way which reliably indicates the time

Japan is a country marked by contrast between old and new. The country values its complex and ancient cultural tradition.

The islands of Japan form an arc that stretches about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) from northeast to southwest.

Much of Japan's original vegetation has been replaced by farming or by plant species brought in from other countries.