What to Do Before an Earthquake

• Make sure you have a fire extinguisher, first aid kit, a battery-powered radio, a flashlight, and extra batteries at home.
• Learn first aid.
• Learn how to turn off the gas, water, and electricity.
• Make up a plan of where to meet your family after an earthquake.
• Don't leave heavy objects on shelves (they'll fall during a quake).
• Anchor heavy furniture, cupboards, and appliances to the walls or floor.
• Learn the earthquake plan at your school or workplace.

What to Do During an Earthquake

• Stay calm! If you're indoors, stay inside. If you're outside, stay outside.
• If you're indoors, stand against a wall near the center of the building, stand in a doorway, or crawl under heavy furniture (a desk or table). Stay away from windows and outside doors.
• If you're outdoors, stay in the open away from power lines or anything that might fall. Stay away from buildings (stuff might fall off the building or the building could fall on you).
• Don't use matches, candles, or any flame. Broken gas lines and fire don't mix.
• If you're in a car, stop the car and stay inside the car until the earthquake stops.
• Don't use elevators (they'll probably get stuck anyway).

What to Do After an Earthquake

• Check yourself and others for injuries. Provide first aid for anyone who needs it.
• Check water, gas, and electric lines for damage. If any are damaged, shut off the valves. Check for the smell of gas. If you smell it, open all the windows and doors, leave immediately, and report it to the authorities (use someone else's phone).
• Turn on the radio. Don't use the phone unless it's an emergency.
• Stay out of damaged buildings.
• Be careful around broken glass and debris. Wear boots or sturdy shoes to keep from cutting your feet.
• Be careful of chimneys (they may fall on you).
• Stay away from beaches. Tsunamis and seiches sometimes hit after the ground has stopped shaking.
• Stay away from damaged areas.
• If you're at school or work, follow the emergency plan or the instructions of the person in charge.
• Expect aftershocks.

The Sahara Desert is the world's largest hot desert and is spread across 8.6 million square kilometers in Northern Africa. The average year round temperature in Sahara exceeds 30°C with the temperatures rising above 50 degree centigrade during summers and the winter temperatures falling below freezing point. With the daily temperature variation fluctuating anywhere between the values -0.5 to 37.5 degree centigrade, the conditions are really harsh and difficult to sustain life and this condition is further deteriorated due to the hot, dusty winds.

 The high temperatures during summer, scanty rainfall, and freezing winters, along with the severely dry weather make Sahara's weather very inhospitable. As a result, plant and animal population is sparse.

Plants and animals develop certain adaptations in order to adapt to life in the harsh desert conditions.

Desert plants possess very long roots that penetrate very deep into the earth, and their broad leaves are replaced with spines, and thick green stems in desert plants like cactus where the spines help in preventing excessive water loss while the stem performs photosynthesis as well as holds water for a very long time.

 

Xerophytes, grasses, shrubs, and trees comprise the common vegetation in the Sahara desert.

Desert animals rarely come out in the hot sun and instead stay underground during most part of the day and eat such foods which contain a lot of water content. The desert animals are also smaller in size which minimizes water loss from their bodies.

The animal species found in the Sahara include the desert hedgehog, gerbil, jerboa, cape hare, common jackal, dorcas gazelle, oryx, dama deer, Nubian wild, barbary sheep, anubis baboon, spotted hyena, sand fox, Libyan striped weasel, the slender mongoose, rattlesnakes, kangaroo rats, kit foxes and numerous species of frogs, toads, crocodiles, lizards, chameleons, skinks, cobras snails, brine and algae shrimps.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/808615

 

• Hollywood was originally an area called Hollywood land and the sign was put up by Harry Chandler, in 1923, to advertise.
• It cost him $21,000 to put it up and he thought it would be temporary and it was built to last 18 months or so.
• There were 4000 20-watt light bulbs installed to illuminate the sign in 1939 and a caretaker was hired to maintain the sign.
• The letters L, A, N, and D, were removed in 1949 and the sign has stayed that way ever since.
• When the sign started showing its age in 1978, Hugh Hefner held an auction for people to sponsor a letter.

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• Some famous people who sponsored a letter include Gene Autry who sponsored the L, Paul Williams who sponsored the W, and Alice Cooper who sponsored the O.
• The Hollywood Sign Trust was set up in 1995 to take care of the Hollywood sign.
• The official borders were set in 2006 and on the south it is bordered by Melrose Avenue and Las Palmas on the north.
• To the east is Western Avenue and to the west is West Hollywood and Beverly Hills.
• The first movie ever made was In Old California in 1910 and the first one that was made in a permanent Hollywood studio was The Squaw Man in 1914.
• By 1935, Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, 20th-Century Fox, and Warner Brothers were all in full production as was the Golden Age of Hollywood.
• Some of the famous movie stars of the Golden Age included Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Cary Grant, and Spencer Tracy.
• Some of the best movies were Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and It’s a Wonderful Life.
• The motion picture studios owned theatres all over the country and showed their movies with their stars in them.
• The end of the Golden Age came when the Supreme Court said they could no longer own theatres that showed only their films.
• The 1950s saw the introduction of 3-D but it was a passing fad.
• In the 1960s, television made its way into homes and movie attendance dropped off sharply.
• The blockbuster movie was born in the 1970s and the studios started increasing revenue with related products, national advertising, releasing movies at many theatres at the same time, and sequels.
• The biggest blockbusters of this time were Star Wars and Jaws.
• Innovative movie producers included Steven Spielburg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and William Friedkin.
• From the 1980s and forward, the biggest changes in movie making has been digital and computer technology and of course, they make fantastic special effects.