h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Polar Bear - A5477871
Author: Opti strong hands has graduated well almost - U231227

this is better here me thinks

It's good, Opti. It will need a fair bit of tidying up, but it is basically sound.

In terms of adaptations; it has black skin to help retain heat better. It also has large feet to facilitate walking on snow.

Just looking at the para on Global Warming: There are several superfluous apostrophes, e.g.

Polar bear’s > polar bears (also lower case 'p')

Actually, I'll just correct the whole para 'coz there are several omitted words, letters, incorrect apostrophes etc etc.

So, copy and paste this:

Global Warming

Scientists believe that global warming has affected the polar bears in terms of their body size and reproductive success, and has caused them to fast during the prolonged ice-free summers they now have to face. These ice-free summers have caused many polar bears to be stranded onshore for longer periods, and to lose a critical amount of their body weight in the process. Pregnant female polar bears are becoming increasingly unable to tend to their young properly because of losing so much body weight and producing little milk; sadly leaving many young polar bears to die. Some expectant mothers lose so much body mass that they are unable to give birth at all and this has led scientists to note a 15 percent decrease in birth rate.

Very good and interesting Entry, though.

Ref the chemical pollutants: polar bears, with their high percentage of body fat, concentrate more of these pollutants than any other Arctic creature, which affects their immunity and fertility.

Black skin doesn't help keep the heat in. Black things radiate more heat than white things.

That's true; but they also absorb more. I recall doing the expt at school whereby one has a shiny can and a matt black can, each containing an equal volume of water standing an equal distance away from a light bulb. The water in the black can heats up faster.

Just looked in my 'O' Level physics book, and they do the expt with a shiny sheet of tinplate and a sheet of tinplate painted matt black. On the outside of each, a piece of cork is fixed using wax. The plates are then stood vertically an equal distance either side of a Bunsen burner. The wax on the matt black surface melts first and the cork slides off The expt shows that the dull black surface is a much better absorber of radiation than the polished surface

This is from 'thinkquest':

'Distinguishing Characteristics: The polar bear has many unique adaptations for dealing with the Arctic cold. The polar bear's skin is actually black, which allows it to soak up as much heat as possible from the sun'.

That's better!

Also, I recall reading that polar bear hair is actually hollow. Not only does this provide an extra souce of insulation (coz filled with air - good insulator) but it acts as a fibre optic which transmits light energy from the outside to the black skin where it's absorbed. So polar bear fur is cold on the surface, but the animal's skin is warm.
However, I believe this theory is quite controversial.

There's a myth about polar bears that when they are creeping up on their prey, they cover their black noses with their white paws to hide them. This is definitely not true!

They can smash through ice floes by jumping to catch the seals lurking underneath.

'they cover their black noses with their white paws to hide them'. That would be quite cute

Off topic slightly, but one of my favourite stories concerning bears in general is that when I was working in St Petersburg (CIS) I saw a guy walking along the pavement with a large(ish) bear on a dog lead.

Another endearing trait of Polar bears is the tendency of the adult males to kill and munch on young Polar bears who have not yet been weaned from their mothers The following link offers a variety of thoughtful theories to explain the behavior of infanticide and cannibalism ...personally I think they are just...well...bears!

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3712/is_199909/ai_n8868383

Only having scanned the entry superficially (it's late), I have just one quick nit to pick: Latin names in normal text are usually italicised, - and vice versa - and the species designation (in this case 'maritimus') isn't capitalized. So this would be correct:

Ursus maritimus

I'll read it more closely when I have the time.
Best of luck!

I too have only skimmed it so far but a couple of observations/comments/suggestions:

+Couple of the longer sections would benefit from breaking up into multiple paragraphs.
+Can't remember what the advice on weights and measures with regard to metric and imperial systems - giving both or not [anyone else?]; but I think it is necessary to be consistent - some are given as both others not.
+Is it worth doing some myth/common conception busting e.g. those inaccurate pictures of polar bears and penguins together.

I'll check back for more thorough read in a while.

"I’m going to talk about the real live ones"
There shouldn't be any first-person references in edited entries, so that'll need to be reworded. The introduction seems rather short - I wonder how it could be expanded?

"Rivalling the kodiak bear the polar bear"
That would benefit from a comma after 'kodiak bear'.

four pawed - four-pawed
It might be interesting to add a footnote suggesting which carnivores are bigger. I imagine it's animals such as killer whales and great white sharks, for instance.

"and lives up to 25 years"
'and can live as long as 25 years'

"and weigh 500 to 1,100 pounds but can reach as much as 1,500 pounds"
What's that in Kg?

'Whilst' should be replaced with 'while' throughout the entry (see <./>Subeditors-Style</.&gt

suns rays - sun's rays

"Both male and female Polar Bears keep themselves warm through by absorbing the suns rays through its white coat of fur. Whilst its fur covered paws prevent it from slipping on the ice"
'Both male and female polar bears keep themselves warm by absorbing the sun's rays through their white fur coat, while their fur-covered paws prevent them from slipping on the ice'
I know this has been touched on already in the thread, but since white objects reflect more heat than darker ones, is that statement about the fur true?

"There are believed to be about 21,000 to 28,000 Polar bear around the world"
They're not 'round the world' though, are they - their habitat is confined to the northern tundras (apart from the handful that are in zoos).

"have been put in place bringing about an estimated 10,000 increase during 1968"
Needs a comma after 'place', and replace 'during' with 'since'.

"Arctic Ring of Life" should be in single quotation marks (house style)

'Both male and female polar bears keep themselves warm by absorbing the sun's rays through their white fur coat, while their fur-covered paws prevent them from slipping on the ice'
I know this has been touched on already in the thread, but since white objects reflect more heat than darker ones, is that statement about the fur true?

Well, see what I said above concerning the (contoversial) theory that polar bear fur acts as a fibre optic, transmitting light energy through to the black skin, whjere it is absorded )and converted into heat energy)

I did see that Al. The use of the word 'white' in the above quote suggests that the white colour is a significant factor on the absorbtion of heat and keeping the animal warm. I'm trying to find out if that's really the case.

Well, actually, each individual hair is transparent. It only appears white due to the multi-layers. So, I suppose incoming light rays 'see' the black skin directly.

Ah too much writing will have to come back to this... I hope I'm not that bad at spelling and grammar as its very much an essential part to my new job