Malayalam Creature 720p
Geraldine Ferraiz
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A monster is a type of fictional creature found in horror, fantasy, science fiction, folklore, mythology and religion. Monsters are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive, with a strange or grotesque appearance that causes terror and fear, often in humans. Monsters usually resemble bizarre, deformed, otherworldly and/or mutated animals or entirely unique creatures of varying sizes, but may also take a human form, such as mutants, ghosts, spirits, zombies, or cannibals, among other things. They may or may not have supernatural powers, but are usually capable of killing or causing some form of destruction, threatening the social or moral order of the human world in the process.
It is said to be for the first time that a district in the country is making such a declaration. The district panchayat made the declaration in this regard and the Kerala State Biodiversity Board was requested to formalise it.
'Kanjiram' (Strychnos nux-vomica), which is often referred to as poison nut tree, was declared as the district's tree. It is used for medicinal purposes. Though it was widely seen in the rocky terrains in the district, the rampant red sand mining was posing a threat to it.
It is also believed that the district got its name from the word 'Kasara' that has the meaning of 'Kanjiram'. As per revenue records Kasargod was earlier known as 'Kanjirodu', said a brochure issued by the district panchayat's biodiversity protection forum.
'Periya Polathali' (Malabar river lilly, Crinum malabaricum) was declared as the district's flower. The white and red flowers that are seen on the stream that originate from the red sand hills of Kasargod were discovered in 2012. It is among the endangered flower species and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has also initiated conservation activities of the flower.
'Vellavayaran Kadal Paranthu' (White-bellied sea eagle, Haliaeetus leucogaster), which is declared as the district's bird, is seen in a 150 kilometre stretch from Mahe to Manjeshwar. It is included in schedule one of the Wildlife Protection Act. As many as 15 nests of the bird were found in the district.
'Palappoovan Aamma' alias 'Beeman Aamma (Cantor's Giant Softshell Turtle, Pelochelys cantorii gray), was declared as the creature of the district. Eggs of the endangered species were spotted in the district in 2019. It has a soft shell and weighs up to 100 kilogram and rarely comes out of water, said that brochure.
Known in his Kochi neighbourhood as a jovial man and a gregarious storyteller, he has spent decades spinning tales around supernatural creatures of ancient imagining. He tells of a murderous pangolin-shaped spirit that lures pregnant women with raw mangoes. Of an 18-inch-high baby-elephant-like creature that walks about at night, an iron clasp and chain rattling around one leg.
Panicker, a retired government administrator from Kochi, has now been immortalised in a story himself. He and his tales are the subject of Kandittund! (Seen It!), a 12-minute Malayalam film that won the National Award for Best Animation Short last month. It recounts some of the delightfully outrageous sprite stories that Panicker has collected and embellished over the years, and tells of how he narrated these to his son Suresh Eriyat, founder of the Mumbai-based Studio Eeksaurus, which produced the film.
Red elicits strong reactions. Around the world, it is by far the most commonly-used color in national flags. It can be a major confidence-booster: Researchers have found that wearing red garments makes people feel more attractive. On the flip side, according to one 2013 study, looking at red things might cause us to experience pain more intensely. You win some, you lose some.
Maybe red wouldn't provoke our brains so much if it didn't happen to be the color of human blood. In this regard, Homo sapiens is far from unique. From timber wolves to tiger sharks, most vertebrate animals have crimson blood in their veins. This hue is produced by hemoglobin, the protein that helps our blood distribute oxygen.
But the vital liquid exists on a color spectrum. Natural selection has engineered blue-blooded invertebrates, green-blooded reptiles and fish with transparent fluids in their veins. We'll get to meet some of those curious critters today.
Like humans, the reptiles have hemoglobin-rich red blood cells. Such cells do not last forever, and when they break down (in our bodies as well as the lizards'), the green-pigmented waste product biliverdin is made. Most vertebrates filter this stuff out of their circulatory systems. For them, excess biliverdin can harm cells, neurons and DNA.
Such an unusual trait would not have evolved six times over if it didn't offer some kind of benefit. But scientists have yet to identify the advantage of having green blood. Predators who eat the lizards don't get sick afterward, and the skinks are no better camouflaged than their biliverdin-deficient cousins. It's possible that the special blood helped their ancestors kill parasites, but more research will be needed to confirm or refute this.
Named for their long, toothy snouts, crocodile icefish (of which 16 species have been recognized) live in the ocean waters around Antarctica. The extremophiles are built to thrive in conditions that would kill most other vertebrates. Crocodile icefish frequent brutally cold portions of the sea where the water temperature can plummet all the way down to 28.5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.9 degrees Celsius). That's below the point at which fresh water freezes.
In extraordinarily cold water, red blood cells turn into a liability. Blood with a high percentage of these cells becomes dangerously thick and hard to circulate when the outside temperature gets too low. That's why fish who live in cold waters have proportionately fewer red blood cells than their warm water counterparts do.
Now you might be thinking "Wait a second. Without hemoglobin or red blood cells, how do the fish circulate oxygen through their bodies?" To get the job done, they enlist the ocean itself. Cold water is naturally richer in usable oxygen than warm water. Crocodile icefish absorb some of this oxygen directly from the ocean and send it into their blood streams. The blood itself is a colorless liquid, a fact that really surprised the discoverer of these fish, biologist Ditlef Rustad, when he dissected one in 1928. So abundant is the cold water oxygen that, upon absorption, it doesn't need to hitch a ride on red blood cells to get around. Instead, it can travel from point A to point B inside the fish's hemoglobin-free plasma.
Both are capable of binding to and transporting oxygen. But whereas hemoglobin contains iron atoms, hemocyanin incorporates copper. As a result, blood containing the latter protein looks markedly different from our human blood. When hemocyanin-rich blood becomes oxygenated, the copper turns it blue.
In oxygen-poor deep-sea environments, hemocyanin is better than hemoglobin at carrying precious oxygen through an animal's veins. Octopuses use the copper-laden protein to stay alive in some deep, cold and thoroughly anoxic waters. Additionally, hemocyanin helps the tentacled critters regulate the salt content of their blood so it matches that of the water they're swimming in.
The setup is not without its drawbacks. Octopuses have a hard time adapting to fluctuations in water acidity. Scientists use the pH scale to determine how basic or acidic a given water sample is. Research has shown that even a small change in the local pH level can weaken the ability of hemocyanin to bind with oxygen in octopus bloodstreams. The consequences may be fatal.
But there's something else in their blood, too. You see, horseshoe crabs don't have white blood cells, which should make them vulnerable to the many types of harmful bacteria and viruses roaming the ocean. Not to worry: Evolution's given the hard-shelled creatures a different way to fight off disease-carrying microorganisms.
Horseshoe crabs have moving cells inside their blood called amoebocytes. When one of these finds a bacterium, it secretes a rapidly-coagulating gel that encases the intruder. Known to scientists as coagulogen, the substance keeps unwanted bacteria from spreading.
To the medical community, it's a godsend. All experimental intravenous drugs are now required by U.S. law to pass a contamination test involving horseshoe crab blood. In it, a sample of the medicine is mingled with the invertebrate's azure blood. If any coagulogen clots appear within 45 minutes, then the researchers will know the drug contains (possibly harmful) bacteria. As such, it isn't ready to be used on human patients. To meet demand, some laboratories harvest these crabs and extract blood samples. Those who survive the ordeal are released back into the ocean.
Extant brachiopods do not rely on hemoglobin or hemocyanin to ferry oxygen in the blood. That task is left to hemerythrin, yet another pigmented protein. Like hemoglobin, it contains iron atoms, albeit in a different arrangement. Hemerythrin makes deoxygenated blood look either colorless or faintly yellow. However, once the blood starts taking on oxygen, it adopts a violet-to-pinkish hue.
You'll also see this kind of blood in Sipuncula marine worms. Nicknamed "peanut worms" due to their segmented appearance, the creepy crawlies reside in sand, mud, crevices and unoccupied shells among other places.
Other ocean-going worms have a different circulatory setup. If a diver were to spot a live polychaete cruising through the waves, he or she might mistake it for a sentient feather-duster. Most of these worms are covered in bristles and tentacles whose function varies from species to species. Some have red blood, but others harbor green blood. The latter use the oxygen-binding protein chlorochurion in place of hemoglobin. When concentrated, the stuff appears to be green. Those New Guinea skinks have apparently got some company...
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