MY MAGIC WORLD OF HEAVEN

Sahara desert  (Image courtesy: fr:Utilisateur:Jgremillot / wikimedia commons )                 Although it is difficult to believe, there are fish living in the desert. Several important expeditions have gone to the Sahara to uncover the mystery of these fish which are sometimes found scores of meters down.                The most famous is the lungfish which lives in the larger African rivers. When these rivers overflow their waters can spread out to desert regions to form small lakes or ponds. When the lake dries up the lungfish buries itself in wet mud where it can live for months on end, especially if it goes deep enough to find an underground layer of water.               Lungfish are among the most ancient bony fishes and are very like those which lived 20...

Synonyms : Sacred Basil, Holi Basil. Family : Labiatae Ocimum sanctum  (Image courtesy: Jubinrajop /  wikimedia commons ) Geographical occurrence : It is considered to be a sacred plant by Hindus. It is cultivated throughout India in gardens of temples and houses and is worshipped as the avatar of Lakshmi.   Characters :  The plant is an annual herb of 30 to 60 cm in height. The branches are generally purplish, sub-quadrangular and covered with soft hairs.The plant bears petiolate leaves having an entire or serrate margin. The apex and base are acute. The leaves are minutely gland-dotted and contain trichomes on both the surfaces. Flowers are verticillate, in recemes, 15-20 cm long in close whorls. Odour is aromatic and taste is pungent. Nutlets are subglobose, slightly compressed, pale brown or red in colour. Seeds are reddish-black and subglobose. Constituents : The major constituent is a volatile oil (0.7%) which contains eugenol, meth...

(Image courtesy: wikimedia commons)               The wax produced by worker bees is used in making honeycombs consisting of six-sided cells into each of which the queen bee lays an egg that will eventually give birth to an insect. Other cells in the honey comb act as a storage places for honey.               Bees produce wax in very thin sheets from eight glands on their abdomens. It takes some 1,250 of these sheets to make up one gram of wax. We can imagine the amount of hard work that goes into the construction of a honey comb. Not only does the bee produce the wax, but it also shapes it into the hexagonal cell.               Chemically, beeswax consists mainly of esters of fatty acids and various long-chain alcohols. It is used as a glazing agent, a sweetener, or in the production of cosmetics and pharmaceutical...