Facts about Bacteria and Viruses

Bacteria and viruses are often confused with each other, but they are very different. Bacteria are usually harmless and viruses are usually harmful, though there are bad bacteria and useful viruses.

Bacterial Facts

• Bacteria (singular ‘bacterium’) are made up of only one simple cell – they are called single-celled organisms.

• A bacterium can be shaped like a sphere (coccus), rod (bacillus) or spiral (spirillum).

• Bacteria are about 1000 nanometres in size (a nanometre is one millionth of a millimetre).

• Different bacteria can live at a huge range of temperatures, from ice to hot springs, and can even live in radioactive waste.

• People have more bacterial cells in their bodies than human cells – and more than there are people on the planet.

• Most bacteria are useful – gut bacteria produce vitamins and help people (and animals) digest their food, and bacteria in the roots help legumes (plants in the pea and bean family) get nitrogen out of the soil, which helps them to grow.

• Bacteria are used in making cheese, yoghurt and sourdough bread.

• Bacteria produce oxygen – perhaps as much as half of the oxygen in the atmosphere.

• Bacteria (usually dead or weak ones) are used to make vaccines. 

Viral Facts

• Viruses are simpler than bacteria, made up of genetic code (DNA or RNA) with a protein shell – some scientists do not describe them as being alive.

• Viruses are 20 to 250 nanometres in size.

• Viruses can’t reproduce (make new viruses) on their own – they need to take over another cell (plant, animal or human).

• Some viruses are useful – viruses called bacteriophages (means ‘bacteria eater’) kill bacteria and are used to protect people against harmful bacteria in food.

• Most viruses cause disease – colds and flu are caused by viruses, as well as common diseases like chickenpox, measles, mumps and German measles (rubella). HIV, which causes AIDS, is a virus.

• Once people have had some viral infections, like chickenpox, it makes them immune from having it again.

Know more about bacteria and viruses.

Moon Facts

THE MOON IS EARTH'S CLOSEST NEIGHBOR IN SPACE, BUT IT IS STILL FAR AWAY. The Earth-moon distance is about 250,000 miles (actually 239,000 miles).

TRAVELING TO THE MOON BY CAR at 55 miles per hour for 12 hours a day would require one year’s worth of time to complete the trip. Of course, one would have to return which would require an identical amount of time. A student could miss two full years of school on a round trip to the moon.

IF AN ASTRONAUT, WHILE ON THE MOON, FILLED A BALLOON WITH HELIUM GAS, WOULD THE BALLOON RISE, FALL, OR STAY EXACTLY WHERE THE ASTRONAUT LEFT IT?

The balloon rises on Earth because it is lighter than the air. It will fall on the moon because there is no air on the moon, so the balloon cannot be lighter than the air.

More Moon Facts.

Tiglons or Tigons

In one of my earlier posts Lion plus Tiger equals Liger, you came across these cross breeds. Tigons are the opposite of ligers and have a tiger father and lioness mother. They may also be referred to as tiglons or tigons.

The breeding of ligers (lion father/tigress mother) has always been easily accomplished, both by accident and design. Tigons, on the other hand, are extremely difficult to breed and very rare.

Over Christmas 2000 a pair of tigon twins joined the collection at Australia's National Zoo. The male (Aster) and female (Tangier) were bred accidentally at a circus, the offspring of a Bengal tiger and a lioness. After being hand-raised they eventually moved to a private facility where they were housed for another five years.

Like all hybrid cats the offspring of a tiger and lioness share the characteristics of both their parents. They:

o Produce both lion and tiger sounds.

o Have shadow spots and stripes in varying amounts. The spots are inherited from the lion parent.

o Grow to enjoy water. Aster and Tangier are reported as occasionally "going for a paddle in their moat".

o Though males may have traces of a mane, if this is present it is very modest. Aster has no traces of a mane at all.

The life span of many hybrid big cats is short and they seem prone to cancers and other illnesses. Confusion between the social lion personality and the solitary tiger personality is noted by handlers.

It is commonly thought tigons are prone towards dwarfism and are much smaller than either of their parents. This does not always apply and they often have the body size of a lioness or Bengal tiger. Aster weighs in at 160 kg; this is the very upper end of the weight range for an adult female Bengal tiger, but small for a male. Tangier is 145 kg, the mid-range for an adult female Bengal. These tigons certainly do not exhibit any form of miniaturisation.

It is usually accurate to say tigons don't exceed the size of their parents. They also seem not to display the same tendency towards 'hybrid vigour' as regards faster growth.

Read more.

 

OMG! Included in Oxford English Dictionary

OMG! The exclamatory online abbreviation has won the approval of the Oxford English Dictionary.

The term - short for "Oh my God" or "Oh my gosh" - is one of dozens of new entries in the authoritative reference book's latest online update.

Other internet-inspired expressions given the stamp of approval include LOL, "laughing out loud"; IMHO, "in my humble opinion"; and BFF, "best friends forever."

Although the terms are associated with modern electronic communications, some are surprisingly old. The first confirmed use of "OMG" was in a letter in 1917.

Not all the new abbreviations originated online. One new entry is wag, for "wives and girlfriends." First used in 2002 to describe the female partners of the England soccer team, it is now used to denote the glamorous and extravagant female partners of male celebrities.

The new update includes about 900 new words and meanings, from "flat white" - a milky espresso-based drink originating from Australia and New Zealand - to "muffin top," defined as "a protuberance of flesh above the waistband of a tight pair of trousers."

The dictionary also includes a new entry for "heart" as a verb, a casual equivalent of "to love" that is represented with a symbol, as seen on millions of souvenirs proclaiming "I (heart) New York."

The internet version of the online Oxford Dictionary was launched in 2000 and is updated every three months.

The Camel

The camel is a unique beast; popularly, known as ‘Ship of the Desert’, camels can travel great distances across the vast expanse of the hot and dry sandy areas, with practically no food and water for days. There are many interesting facts about them.

1. The name comes from the Arabic ǧml meaning "beauty".

2. A camel’s hump does not store water. It stores fat, lessening heat-trapping insulation around the rest of the body.

3. One reason they can go long periods without water is the shape of their red blood cells. These are oval so will flow when they are dehydrated rather than clumping as ours do. The camel is the only mammal to have oval red blood cells.

4. Camels can drink up to 40 gallons of water in one go.

5. Their temperature ranges from 34 degrees Celsius at night to 41 degrees during the day. They don't begin to sweat until they are over 41 degrees.

6. The above photo does not illustrate the camel's sexual organs but is in fact the lining of the mouth extruded during mating calls - or sometimes to heighten the effect of "spitting".

7. Camels lie down to rest and sleep (and good luck getting them up if they decide they don't want to).

8. Camels lips are split to help them graze.

9. They can eat anything including thorny twigs without injuring their mouths.

10. Camels can kick in all four directions with each of their legs.

Continue reading.

Stamps to be replaced by text messages

The Swedish postal service plans to give customers' tongues a rest by allowing them to pay their postage via mobile phone text message instead of stamps.

A similar system is set for launch in Denmark on April 1st allowing users to send a text message, prompting a special code to be sent back.

The code is then written down on the letter and serves as proof of the postage having been paid.

The postal services in both Sweden and Denmark are convinced that people will continue to send letters, despite the rise in other forms of communication, and paying postage by mobile phone is seen as a way of making the process easier.

The system under consideration in Sweden would allow users to use codes retrieved via text message for sending letters and parcels weighing up to two kilograms.

More about stamps and text messages.

Frog Facts

Imagine traveling back through time millions of years to the age of the dinosaurs. Pterodactyls glide above a soggy marsh. Nearby, a colossal 80-ton Brachiosaurus munches on a tree. On the ground at its feet, something strangely familiar hops by: a frog.

Surprised? Few people realize just how ancient frogs are. For 190 million years, the ancestors of modern frogs have roamed (if not ruled) the earth, looking much the same as they do today. The secret to their success is their amazing adaptability.

As amphibians, frogs have one webbed foot in each of two worlds. The advantages of this double life are clear to see: Are land predators giving you trouble? Dive into the water. Not enough to eat in the pond? Hop out and see what they're serving on shore.


Frogs have a reputation for leaping that is well deserved. Launched by their long legs, many frogs can leap up to twenty times their body length. (That would be about a 100-foot jump for you or me!) The longest frog jump on record was made by a frog named Santjie at a frog derby held in South Africa. Santjie bested the competition with a jump of 33 feet 5.5 inches


The biggest kind of frog is the Goliath frog (Conraua goliath). They come from Cameroon in West Africa. Their bodies can reach the size of nearly a foot (30 cm) long. The Conraua Goliath weighs as much as a large housecat, about 3.3 kilos!


If a frog eats enough fireflies, its stomach will glow. A frog or toad that has swallowed fireflies will glow from the light produced by the insects. The toad itself did not actually glow but Tom could see the firefly's glow through the toad's body.


More Frog Facts.



Refused a smooch, 92-year-old woman fires gun

Helen Staudinger, 92, wanted a kiss. But when her 53-year-old neighbour refused, the central Florida woman aimed a semi-automatic pistol at his house and fired four times.

"If my head would have been over just a little bit further, (a bullet) probably would have hit me in the back of the head," the neighbour, Dwight Bettner, told Reuters.

Staudinger remained in jail after being arrested on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and shooting into a dwelling. Her next court date is April 26.

More on this deadly kiss affair.

Fireflies

Fireflies are familiar, but few realize that these insects are actually beetles, nocturnal members of the family Lampyridae. Most fireflies are winged, which distinguishes them from other luminescent insects of the same family, commonly known as glowworms.

There are about 2,000 firefly species. These insects live in a variety of warm environments, as well as in more temperate regions, and are a familiar sight on summer evenings. Fireflies love moisture and often live in humid regions of Asia and the Americas. In drier areas, they are found around wet or damp areas that retain moisture.

Everyone knows how fireflies got their name, but many people don't know how the insects produce their signature glow. Fireflies have dedicated light organs that are located under their abdomens. The insects take in oxygen and, inside special cells, combine it with a substance called luciferin to produce light with almost no heat.

Read more.

Chinchillas

Chinchillas are compact in shape with large ears, big dark eyes, and a bushy tail. They have a soft, dense coat that protects them from the elements in their natural habitat. They are various shades of grey with a yellowish-white underbelly. Their front paws are small with naked palms, while their rear feet are larger to help them jump and run quickly to escape from danger.

Chinchillas have a relatively long lifespan. Wild chinchillas usually live to around 10 years, while domesticated ones have lived to over 20.

 

Wild chinchillas are mainly nocturnal and live in large colonies in rocky, mountainous areas. They prefer high elevations and are often found between 10,000 and 15,000 ft. Their habitat is barren and rugged, and the climate is harsh. Their soft, dense fur protects them from extremes of temperature and they are so well insulated that they can’t withstand high temperatures. Colonies can range from a few individuals to over 100 that are spread out over wide areas and stay in contact with a range of vocalizations.

Female chinchillas are larger and more aggressive than the males and are the dominant sex. Chinchillas face many predators such as hawks, skunks and foxes. They are quick and agile and can jump 5’ high if necessary to escape. They live in crevices and burrows among the rocks and can dart away quickly when they sense danger.

Read more.

The Largest Tigers

The largest tigers are found in the north, gradually becoming smaller in the south.

• Adult male Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) may weigh up to 300 kg. (660 lb) and measure about 3.3 m. (10.9 ft) in length. Females are smaller, weighing between 100 to 167 kg (200 to 370 lb) and measure about 2.6 meters (8.5 ft) in length.

• Adult male Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) weigh about 220 kg (480 lb) and measure about 2.9 m (9.5 ft) in length. Females are slightly smaller with an average weight of 140 kg (300 lb) and 2.5 m (8 ft) in length.

• The South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis) are native to South Central China. Males weigh about 150 kg (330 lb) and are about 2.5 m (8 ft) in length. Females weigh are smaller, weighing about 110 kg (240 lb) and are about 2.3 m (7.5 ft) in length.

• Adult male Indo-Chinese tigers (Panthera tigris corbetti) may weigh up to 182 kg (400 lb) and measure about 2.8 m (9ft) in length. Females are smaller, weighing about 115 kg (250 lb) and measure about 2.4 meters (8 ft) in length.

• Adult male Sumatran tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrae) may weigh up to 120 kg (265 lb) and measure about 2.4 m (8 ft) in length. Females are slightly smaller, weighing about 90 kg (198 lb) and measure about 2.2 m (7 ft) in length.

Tigers eat a variety of prey ranging in size from termites to elephant calves. However, an integral component of their diet are large-bodied prey weighing about 20 kg (45 lb) or larger such as moose, deer species, pigs, cows, horses, buffalos and goats. Occasionally they may consume tapirs, elephant and rhinoceros calves, bear species, leopards and Asiatic wild dogs.

Tigers may consume up to 40 kg (88 pounds) of meat at one time. It is estimated that every tiger consumes about 50 deer-sized animals each year, about one per week.

Read more.

Weird items in post

Mail inspectors are used to discovering the weird and wonderful in the overseas post but they were taken aback when they opened a parcel from the US to find a real, snarling bear's head.

Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service say it is one of the "strangest" things ever sent by mail.

The brown bear - sent by someone in New Jersey to their grandfather who lives in western Sydney - was first identified as a suspicious package by X-ray machine. It was intercepted at the Clyde Mail Centre, and the owner had to pay $60 to have it treated with gamma radiation before it could be released.

Weird items that have arrived in the mail from overseas recently includes bear skin and a real elephant's foot, which had been made into an umbrella stand, a dried tiger's penis, a walking stick made from a bull's member, a mounted and stuffed exotic bird, bear and zebra skins, dried worms, and live creatures such as lizards, snakes, tropical fish and giant cockroaches.

Read more.

The Great Barrier Reef

One of Australia's most remarkable natural gifts, the Great Barrier Reef is blessed with the breathtaking beauty of the world's largest coral reef. The reef contains an abundance of marine life and comprises of over 3000 individual reef systems and coral cays and literally hundreds of picturesque tropical islands with some of the world’s most beautiful sun-soaked, golden beaches.

The Great Barrier Reef is one of the seven wonders of the natural world, and pulling away from it, and viewing it from a greater distance, you can understand why. It is larger than the Great Wall of China and the only living thing on earth visible from space.

The marine park stretches over 3000km (1800 miles) almost parallel to the Queensland coast, from near the coastal town of Bundaberg, up past the tip of Cape York. The reef, between 15 kilometres and 150 kilometres off shore and around 65 Km wide in some parts, is a gathering of brilliant, vivid coral providing divers with the most spectacular underwater experience imaginable.

A closer encounter with the Great Barrier Reef's impressive coral gardens reveals many astounding underwater attractions including the world's largest collection of corals (in fact, more than 400 different kinds of coral), coral sponges, molluscs, rays, dolphins, over 1500 species of tropical fish, more than 200 types of birds, around 20 types of reptiles including sea turtles and giant clams over 120 years old.

 

The Great Barrier Reef is a breeding area for humpback whales, migrating from the Antarctic and is also the habitat of a few endangered species including the Dugong (Sea Cow) and large Green Sea Turtle. In recognition of its significance, UNESCO listed the Great Barrier Reef as a World Heritage Site in 1981.

Learn more.

Monkeys Eyebrow

Monkeys Eyebrow is an unincorporated rural community in Ballard County, Kentucky, United States. It is generally the northwesternmost community in the Jackson Purchase area of western Kentucky that is identified on the highway maps distributed by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.

One theory on the origin of this unique name is that, when looking at a map of Ballard County, it favors a monkey's head. Monkeys Eyebrow is located where the monkey's eyebrow would be located.

Read more.

Human-shaped mobile phone

Developed by Japanese researchers, then Elfoid is a human-shaped mobile phone with a skin-like outer layer that enables users to feel closer to those on the other end.



It even wiggles and talks to you in the voice of the person of the other end. According to Japan’s Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), this new cell phone model is ‘revolutionary’ because it can feel like the person to whom you are talking! The project is collaboration between Osaka University, the mobile telephone operator NTT DoCoMo and other institutes.

They hope to put it into commercial production within five years by adding image and voice recognition functions.


The prototype, slightly bigger than the size of a palm, features an outer coating that feels like human skin.


Read more.

Different Versions of Cinderella

Rossini's story of Cinderella is very different from the Disney version, the one best known to American children today. There is no fairy godmother, no pumpkin coach, not even glass slippers. In fact it is not even a fairy tale but a comedy of manners written for adults. However, neither is Disney's like most of the over 700 known versions of the story. The Cinderella story and its history have been studied more than almost any other work.

The oldest true Cinderella story comes from the China of 850-860 A.D.

Cinderella is known as Zezolla in Italy, Yeh –hsien in China, and Rashin Coatie in Scotland.

In the Chinese version, there is no fairy godmother. Instead, Yeh-hsien receives her nice clothes by praying to the bones of her dead pet fish. In the Italian version, Zezolla gets her clothes from a magic tree and she actually kills her stepmother. In the Scottish version, Rashin Coatie kills her evil sister with an axe to rescue her pet cow. The cow then provides her with her nice clothes.

Find out more about different versions of Cinderella here.

Population 1: Buford, Wyoming, the smallest town

If you ever get the feeling that you’re on your own, then spare a thought for Don Sammons.

The hamlet of Buford in Wyoming is not even a sparsely-populated area. It’s a single-populated area, as the 60-year-old is the only man, woman or child living there.

But even though the ‘population one’ hamlet is 8,000ft up a cold mountain, he denies feeling lonely and runs an isolated petrol station and convenience shop.

Mr Sammons left Los Angeles in 1980 with his wife and bought the tiny town with six buildings to escape their busy lifestyle.

When the couple moved there were seven people living in Buford working for a railroad that passes nearby, but they all moved away to bigger towns by the mid-1990s.

Then his wife died 15 years ago and his son, now aged 26, moved to Colorado three years ago. So that left Mr Sammons in Buford on his own.

"I'm the king of the castle here," he said.

He gets about 1000 visitors a day to the village during the summer, which has a billboard proclaiming his small empire, but this drops to around 100 during the winter.

They stop because they're intrigued to find this place in the middle of nowhere near the top of a mountain,’ he said. ‘We sell all kinds of souvenirs from hats to mugs. The post card is our best seller.

Buford was formed in 1866 as military outpost "Fort Sanders", to protect workers building a railroad. It was once home to 2000 people and the town was named Buford after Civil War general John Buford following the opening.

‘In winters the winds often blow at 70mph giving us a wind-chill factor of minus 20,' he said. 'Only the strong survive up here.

Check out more pictures of Don Sammons town.

Owner takes sledgehammers to smash up $400,000 Lamborghini Gallardo L140 luxury sports car

An irate owner of an "'unreliable"' Lamborghini called in workers with sledgehammers to destroy the car in public after the makers allegedly failed to fix it.

The Lamborghini Gallardo L140 luxury sports car - worth the equivalent of $400,000-plus in Australia - had recurring problems after the owner purchased it in October last year.

But far from fixing the problem, the dealership managed to mess up the bumper and chassis when it was in their care, according to reports in China.

So the Chinese entrepreneur decided to pummel his pride and joy on World Consumer Rights Day by hiring a group of workers, giving them sledgehammers and letting them do the rest.

The extreme display attracted a large crowd in Qingdao, eastern China's Shandong province.

(Source)

Oxytocin: A love hormone found in some monkeys in new form

The oxytocin so-called "love and trust" hormone has been found in an odd form in a monkey species.

According to the researcher at Stanford University this is the first time oxytocin has been reported to be different in any mammal ever studied.

Oxytocin is a brain hormone that regulates parts of mammalian reproduction, including lactation and labor, but also is involved in social behaviors such as bonding between partners and mother-and-child.

The hormone is released by a part of the brain called the pituitary gland and travels throughout the system. It was widely thought to be exactly the same in all mammals, since it plays such an important part in reproduction and social bonding.

In the research it was found that the gene for oxytocin was different than any other mammal. They compared this new sequence with several other related species of New World monkey, including lab models like rhesus and capuchins. Many of these New World monkeys have this slightly different copy of the gene, which results in the gene producing a slightly different active protein.

One of the amino acids, the molecules that make up proteins, is different. This amino acid is bigger, which might change the protein's structure or action, though the monkeys display normal social behaviors and have similar reactions to the traditional type of oxytocin as other mammals.

Researchers know that the monkeys react to the traditional form of oxytocin because they've studied its effects on these monkeys in the lab. It's possible that both the novel form and the traditional form act the same way in the monkeys, but researchers aren't sure.

Read more.

World’s Longest Underground River

The waterway twists and turns for 95 miles (153 kilometres) through the region's limestone below Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. A pair of European divers spent four years exploring these caverns and discovered that the second and third largest Mexican cave systems actually link up.

Complete news.

Snake dies after biting fake breast

A Snake who bit Israeli model and actress Orit Fox in the chest died after being poisoned by unusual venom -- the silicone in the buxom blonde's surgically enhanced breasts.

Spanish TV channel Telecinco's footage of Fox's encounter was racking up YouTube. The video shows the model fondling and licking the serpent for a feature in Israeli DJ Shmulik Tayar's radio show, before the snake got fresh with Fox and latched on to her left breast.

Fox was taken to Hillel Yaffe Hospital in Hadera, northwest of Jerusalem. After a tetanus shot and a few hours of observation, she was released, according to Telecinco.

But the snake did not fare so well. Days later, Telecinco reported that the creature had died of silicone poisoning.

But can a snake die of poisoning.

According to snake biologist it’s hard to believe that the snake could have ingested any significant amount of silicone from the small bite shown in the video clip. And even if the snake did get a mouthful of silicone, there isn’t any evidence that medical-grade silicone can poison a snake.

Read more.

Fox: The prehistoric man’s best friend

Long before man could play "fetch" with his darling pooch, or carry around her best friend, a Chihuahua, in her purse, there seems to have been a different story altogether.

Prehistoric man apparently did not consider the dog to be pet of choice. He chose, instead, a fox! A discovery made in a prehistoric cemetery in the Middle East, could shed light on the nature and timing of newly developing relationships between people and beasts before animals were first domesticated. It also hints that key aspects of ancient practices surrounding death might have originated earlier than before thought.

Following are the details of the discovery as reported by LiveScience.com. Take a look.



A red fox skull was found in Grave I
at 'Uyun al-Hammam in Jordan
(shown here after conservation and reconstruction)



The ancient graveyard known as 'Uyun al-Hammam, or "spring of the pigeon," was discovered in the small river valley of Wadi Ziqlab in northern Jordan in 2000 and named after a nearby freshwater spring. The burial ground is about 16,500 years old, meaning it dates back to just before the emergence of the Natufian culture, in which pioneers used wild cereals (such as wheat, barley and oats) in a practice that would eventually evolve into true farming. These communities dwelled 11,600 to 14,500 years ago in the Levant, the area that today includes Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The Natufian culture was known to bury people with dogs. One case discovered in past excavations in the area involved a woman buried with her hand on a puppy, while another included three humans buried with two dogs along with tortoise shells. However, the new discovery at 'Uyun al-Hammam shows that some of these practices took place earlier with a different doglike animal, the fox.

At least 11 people were buried at the site in Jordan, most of whom were found with artifacts such as stone tools, a bone spoon and bone dagger, and red ochre, an iron mineral. One grave held the skull and upper right arm bone of a red fox, with red ochre stuck on its skull, along with bones of deer, gazelle, tortoises and wild cattle. A neighboring grave with human remains also contained the nearly complete skeleton of a red fox, missing its skull and upper right arm bone, suggesting that a single fox had parts of it moved from one grave to another in prehistoric times.

Read more.

Notable Lakes

Lake Michigan-Huron is the largest lake by surface area: 117,350 km². It also has the longest lake coastline in the world: 8,790 km. If Huron and Michigan are considered two lakes, Lake Superior is the largest lake, with 82,414 km². However, Huron still has the longest coastline at 6,157 km (2980 km excluding the coastlines of its many inner islands). The world's smallest geological ocean, the Caspian Sea, at 394,299 km² has a surface area greater than the six largest freshwater lakes combined, and it's frequently cited as the world's largest lake.

• The deepest lake is Lake Baikal in Siberia, with a bottom at 1,637 m. Its mean depth is also the greatest in the world (749 m).

It is also the world's largest lake by volume (23,600 km³, though smaller than the Caspian Sea at 78,200 km³), and the second longest (about 630 km from tip to tip).

• The longest lake is Lake Tanganyika, with a length of about 660 km (measured along the lake's center line).

It is also the second largest by volume and second deepest (1,470 m) in the world, after lake Baikal.

• The world's oldest lake is Lake Baikal, followed by Lake Tanganyika (Tanzania).

• The world's highest lake is the crater lake of Ojos del Salado, at 6,390 metres (20,965 ft). The Lhagba Pool in Tibet at 6,368 m (20,892 ft) comes second.

• The highest large freshwater lake in the world is Lake Manasarovar in Tibet Autonomous Region of China.

• The world's highest commercially navigable lake is Lake Titicaca in Peru and Bolivia at 3,812 m (12,507 ft). It is also the largest freshwater (and second largest overall) lake in South America.

• The world's lowest lake is the Dead Sea, bordering Israel and Jordan at 418 m (1,371 ft) below sea level. It is also one of the lakes with highest salt concentration.

Find out more about lakes.