Mammals: KOALAS

Koalas

Koalas are mammals commonly classified as marsupials. 

A marsupial is a type of animal that has a pouch for the young to be carried around in. 

The Koala is the only member of the Phascolarctidae family. The Koala’s scientific name Phascolarctos cinereus means ‘ash-coloured pouched bear’

Koala’s Characteristics

            Koalas have soft, wool-like gray to brown colored fur. They have a white underbelly and patches of white under their chins and a fringe of white around their ears. They have a large, round head with large, round, furry ears, a large nose and long strong limbs with sharp claws. They have a small tail, hidden by their fur.

           They have very small eyes and a very large nose. This larger nose is one of their dominant characteristics that people immediately notice about them. They have an amazing sense of smell with that nose!
           They have front limbs that are much longer than the back ones. They have powerful claws and opposable thumbs that allow them to easily grip as well as to climb.
            Koalas reach a maximum length of about 24 – 34 inches (60 – 85cm). An adult male koala can weigh between 17 – 30 pounds and a female between 13 – 25 pounds. They have a life span of between 12 and 15 years. The males are larger than the females.
 

Koala’s Diet

Koalas are herbivores and feed on eucalyptus leaves, especially at night. They do not drink much water and they get most of their moisture from these leaves.

Although the leaves are poisonous to most animals, they have special bacteria that live in their stomachs to break down and digest them. Their diet includes up to one pound of leaves a day. Eucalyptus leaves are high in fiber and low in nutrients. Koalas are able to survive on their diet since they have a slow metabolic system to conserve nutrients and energy. They don't get many calories from their diet, but conserve energy by moving occasionally and sleeping as much as 20 hours each day.

Koala and Eucalyptus leaves

Baby Koala
            A newborn koala is called a joey and is only the size of a broad bean, blind and hairless. A koala mother usually gives birth to one joey at a time. Upon birth the joey makes its way to the mother’s pouch and attaches itself inside. It then develops its eyes, legs, and fur. In fact it lives in the mother’s pouch for about six months. When it emerges from the pouch it takes on the familiar cute and cuddly appearance of an adult.
Eventually the baby koala transfers itself to the mother’s back to hitch a free ride. It continues to nurse off the mother’s milk for up to a year and eats eucalyptus leaves. 

 

Fun Facts 

• Koalas are not bears. They are MARSUPIALS
• Koalas have sharp claws which help them climb trees.
• Outside of breeding seasons, koalas are quiet animals.
• Koalas eat eucalyptus leaves and almost nothing else. 
• Koalas Sleep 20 Hours a Day 
• The koala can run as fast as a rabbit.
• Koalas have similar fingerprints to humans.
• Koalas are mostly NOCTURNAL animals. This means that they sleep in the daytime, and move around and feed at night. 
• Koalas also communicate with each other by making a noise like a snore and then a belch, known as a "bellow".   
  

Nerd Jokes

Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None, it is a hardware problem!

Q: What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?
A: Pumpkin Pi!

Q: Did you hear about the software coder that got stuck in his shower for a week?
A: The instructions on his shampoo said: Lather, rinse, repeat.

Q: When do astronauts eat?
A: At launch time!

Q: Why do you rarely find mathematicians spending time at the beach?
A: Because they have sine and cosine to get a tan and don’t need the sun!

Q: Why was 6 scared of 7?
A: Because seven eight nine! (Seven ate nine!)

Q: A tree, algae, and mushroom all said that they would build a robot, which one ended up
doing it?
A: The tree because he said that he wood.

Q: Where does bad light end up?
A: In a prism!

Q: Why did the incandescent ask more questions than the compact fluorescent?
A: He had more watts!

Pi and the square root of -1 (i) were having an argument, finally it got so heated i said to pi, “Why can’t you just be rational?” To which pi replied, “Get real!”

A physicist, an engineer and a mathematician agree to take part in a psychology experiment. Each person is locked in a room with nothing but a single can of beans. After three days the researchers open each door in turn. In the first room they find the physicist happily scrawling equations across a wall, and the can of beans neatly popped open. They ask him how he opened the can and he says “Oh, it was quite elementary. I did all this (motioning to the equations on the wall) mathematics to find the weakest point. Then, I applied pressure to the these points.” They take their notes and move on to the next room, where the engineer is snoring in a corner. The can is lying beside him, a smashed pile of metal. They wake him and ask him how he opened the can, to which he replies “I battered it to its failure point.” Finally, they open the third door. There they find the mathematician holding the can, pacing back and forth, and muttering, “Assume the can is open. Assume the can is open…”

Mathematics is the first sine of madness!!!

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.

I’m so cool you have to measure me in kelvin.

A mathematician and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three people coming out of the house. The physicist says, “The measurement wasn’t accurate,” and the mathematician replies, “If exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again.”

I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code!

Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn’t much, but the reception was excellent.

Professor: What is the area of a circle?
Student: Pi R squared.
Professor: Pis are not square, pies are round!

Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar.
One says, “I think I’ve lost an electron.”
The other says, “Are you sure?”
The first replies, “Yes, I’m positive…”

Hydrogen and Oxygen were bonding in a bath,
Gold walked in and say “Hey You” (Au),
Lets ring up Sodium and Potassium and have a party!
Sodium said “Na” and Potassium said “K”

GEORGE BOOLE (1815–1864)

George Boole, the son of a cobbler, was born in Lincoln, England, in November 1815. Because of his family’s difficult financial situation, Boole struggled to educate himself while supporting his family. Nevertheless, he became one of the most important mathematicians of the 1800s. Although he considered a career as a clergyman, he decided instead to go into teaching, and soon afterward opened a school of his own. In his preparation for teaching mathematics, Boole—unsatisfied with textbooks of his day— decided to read the works of the great mathematicians. While reading papers of the great French mathematician Lagrange, Boole made discoveries in the calculus of variations, the branch of analysis dealing with finding curves and surfaces by optimizing certain parameters.

In 1848 Boole published The Mathematical Analysis of Logic, the first of his contributions to symbolic logic. In 1849 he was appointed professor of mathematics at Queen’s Collegein Cork, Ireland. In 1854 he published The Laws of Thought, his most famous work. In this book, Boole introduced what is now called Boolean algebra in his honor. Boole wrote textbooks on differential equations and on difference equations that were used in Great Britain until the end of the nineteenth century. Boole married in 1855; his wife was the niece of the professor of Greek at Queen’s College. In 1864 Boole died from pneumonia, which he contracted as a result of keeping a lecture engagement even though he was soaking wet from a rainstorm.

ARISTOTLE (384b.c.e.–322b.c.e.)

Aristotle was born in Stagirus (Stagira) in northern Greece. His father was the personal physician of the King of Macedonia. Because his father died when Aristotle was young, Aristotle could not follow the custom of following his father’s profession. Aristotle became an orphan at a young age when his mother also died. His guardian who raised him taught him poetry, rhetoric, and Greek.

At the age of 17, his guardian sent him to Athens to further his education. Aristotle joined Plato’s Academy, where for 20 years he attended Plato’s lectures, later presenting his own lectures on rhetoric. When Plato died in 347 B.C.E., Aristotle was not chosen to succeed him because his views differed too much from those of Plato. Instead, Aristotle joined the court of King Hermeas where he remained for three years, and married the niece of the King. When the Persians defeated Hermeas, Aristotle moved to Mytilene and, at the invitation of King Philip of Macedonia, he tutored Alexander, Philip’s son, who later becameAlexander the Great. Aristotle tutored Alexander for five years and after the death of King Philip, he returned to Athens and set up his own school, called the Lyceum. Aristotle’s followers were called the peripatetics, which means “to walk about,” because Aristotle often walked around as he discussed philosophical questions. Aristotle taught at the Lyceum for 13 years where he lectured to his advanced students in the morning and gave popular lectures to a broad audience in the evening. When Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C.E., a backlash against anything related to Alexander led to trumped-up charges of impiety against Aristotle. Aristotle fled to Chalcis to avoid prosecution. He only lived one year in Chalcis, dying of a stomach ailment in 322 B.C.E. Aristotle wrote three types of works: those written for a popular audience, compilations of scientific facts, and systematic treatises. The systematic treatises included works on logic, philosophy, psychology, physics, and natural history. Aristotle’s writings were preserved by a student and were hidden in a vault where a wealthy book collector discovered them about 200 years later. They were taken to Rome, where they were studied by scholars and issued in new editions, preserving them for posterity.

Emotional Intelligence: The Social Skills You Weren't Taught in School

Emotional intelligence is a shorthand that psychological researchers use to describe how well individuals can manage their own emotions and react to the emotions of others. People who exhibit emotional intelligence have the less obvious skills necessary to get ahead in life, such as managing conflict resolution, reading and responding to the needs of others, and keeping their own emotions from overflowing and disrupting their lives. In this guide, we’ll look at what emotional intelligence is, and how to develop your own.

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Measuring emotional intelligence is relatively new in the field of psychology, only first being explored in the mid-80s. Several models are currently being developed, but for our purposes, we’ll examine what’s known as the “mixed model,” developed by psychologist Daniel Goleman. The mixed model has five key areas:

• Self-awareness: Self-awareness involves knowing your own feelings. This includes having an accurate assessment of what you’re capable of, when you need help, and what your emotional triggers are.

• Self-management: This involves being able to keep your emotions in check when they become disruptive. Self-management involves being able to control outbursts, calmly discussing disagreements, and avoiding activities that undermine you like extended self-pity or panic.

• Motivation: Everyone is motivated to action by rewards like money or status. Goleman’s model, however, refers to motivation for the sake of personal joy, curiosity, or the satisfaction of being productive.

• Empathy: While the three previous categories refer to a person’s internal emotions, this one deals with the emotions of others. Empathy is the skill and practice of reading the emotions of others and responding appropriately.

• Social skills: This category involves the application of empathy as well as negotiating the needs of others with your own. This can include finding common ground with others, managing others in a work environment, and being persuasive.

The order of these emotional competencies isn’t all that relevant, as we all learn many of these skills simultaneously as we grow. It’s also important to note that, for our purposes, we’ll only be using this as a guide. Emotional intelligence isn’t an area that most people receive formal training in. We’ll let psychologists argue over the jargon and models, but for now let’s explore what each of these mean and how to improve them in your own life.

Self-Awareness

Before you can do anything else here, you have to know what your emotions are. Improving your self-awareness is the first step to identifying any problem area you’re facing. Here are some ways to improve your self-awareness:

• Keep a journal: Career skill blog recommends starting by keeping a journal of your emotions . At the end of every day, write down what happened to you, how you felt, and how you dealt with it. Periodically, look back over your journal and take note of any trends, or anytime you overreacted to something.

• Ask for input from others: As we’ve talked about before when dealing with your self-perception, input from others can be invaluable . Try to ask multiple people who know you well where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Write down what they say, compare what they say to each other and, again, look for patterns. Most importantly, don’t argue with them. They don’t have to be correct. You’re just trying to gauge your perception from another’s point of view.

• Slow down (or meditate): Emotions have a habit of getting the most out of control when we don’t have time to slow down or process them. The next time you have an emotional reaction to something, try to pause before you react (something the internet makes easier than ever, if you’re communicating online). You can also try meditating to slow your brain down and give your emotional state room to breathe.

If you’ve never practiced intentional self-awareness, these tips should give you a practical head start. One strategy I personally use is to go on long walks or have conversations with myself discussing what’s bothering me. Often, I’ll find that the things I say to the imaginary other end of the conversation can give me some insight into what’s really bugging me. The important aspect is to look inwards, rather than focusing solely on external factors.

Self-Management

Once you know how your emotions work, you can start figuring out how to handle them. Proper self-management means controlling your outbursts, distinguishing between external triggers and internal over-reactions, and doing what’s best for your needs.

One key way to manage your emotions is to change your sensory input. You’ve probably heard the old advice to count to ten and breathe when you’re angry. Speaking as someone who’s had plenty of overwhelming issues with depression and anger, this advice is usually crap (though if it works for you, more power to you). However, giving your physical body a jolt can break the cycle. If you’re feeling lethargic, do some exercise. If you’re stuck in an emotional loop, give yourself a “snap out of it” slap. Anything that can give a slight shock to your system or break the existing routine can help.

Lifehacker alum Adam Dachis also recommends funneling emotional energy into something productive. It’s alright to let overwhelming emotions stew inside you for a moment, if it’s not an appropriate time to let them out. However, when you do, rather than vent it on something futile, turn it into motivation instead:

"I recently started playing tennis for fun, knowing that I’d never become exceptional because I began too late in life. I’ve become better and have a very minor talent for the game, so when I play poorly I now know and I get down on myself. When up against an opponent with far more skill I find it hard to do much else than get angry. Rather than let that anger out, I take note of it and use it to fuel my desire to practice more. Whether in sports, work, or everyday life, we can get complacent with our skill and forget that we always have some room for improvement. When you start to get mad, get better instead."

You can’t always control what makes you feel a certain way, but you can always control how you react. If you have some impulse control problems, find ways to get help when you’re feeling calm. Not all emotions can be vented away. My struggle with depression taught me that some emotions persist long after the overflow. However, there’s always a moment when those feelings feel a little less intense. Use those moments to seek help.

Motivation

We talk about motivation a lot . When we’re talking about motivation as it relates to emotional intelligence, however, we don’t just mean getting up the energy to go to work. We’re talking about your inner drive to accomplish something. That drive isn’t just some feel-goody nonsense, either. As Psychology today explains, there’s a section of your prefrontal cortex that lights up at the mere thought of achieving a meaningful goal.

Whether your goal is building a career, raising a family, or creating some kind of art, everyone has something they want to do with their life.When your motivation is working for you, it connects with reality in tangible ways. Want to start a family? Motivated people will start dating. Want to improve your career? Motivated people will educate themselves, apply for new jobs, or angle for a promotion.

Daniel Goleman suggests that in order to start making use of that motivation, you first need to identify your own values. Many of us are so busy that we don’t take the time to examine what our values really are. Or worse, we’ll do work that directly contradicts what we value for so long that we lose that motivation entirely.

Unfortunately, we can’t give you the answer for what it is you want in life, but there are lots of strategies you can try . Use your journal to find times when you’ve felt fulfilled. Create a list of things you value. Most of all,accept the uncertainty in life and just build something. Fitness instructor Michael Mantell, Ph.D suggests that using lesser successes you know you can accomplish. Remember, everyone who’s accomplished something you want to achieve did it slowly, over time.

Empathy

Your emotions are only one-half of all your relationships. It’s the half you focus on the most, sure, but that’s only because you hang out with yourself every day. All the other people that matter to you have their own set of feelings, desires, triggers, and fears. Empathy is your most important skill for navigating your relationships . Empathy is a life-long skill, but here are some tips you can use to practice empathy:

• Shut up and listen: We’re gonna start with the hardest one here, because it’s the most important. You can’t experience everyone else’s lives to fully understand them, but you can listen. Listening involves letting someone else talk and then not countering what they say. It means putting aside your preconceptions or skepticism for a bit and allowing the person you’re talking to a chance to explain how they feel. Empathy is hard, but virtually every relationship you have can be improved at least marginally by waiting at least an extra ten seconds before you retake the conversation.

• Take up a contrary position to your own: One of the quickest ways to solidify an opinion in your mind is to argue in favor of it. To counter this, take up a contrary position. If you think your boss is being unreasonable, try defending their actions in your head. Would you find their actions reasonable if you were in their shoes? Even asking the questions of yourself can be enough to start empathizing with another’s point of view (though, of course, getting real answers from others can always help).

• Don’t just know, try to understand: Understanding is key to having empathy. As we’ve discussed before, understanding is the difference between knowing something and truly empathizing with it. If you catch yourself saying, “I know, but,” a lot, take that as an indicator that you should pause a bit more. When someone tells you about an experience that’s not your own, take some time to mull over how your life might be different if you experienced that on a daily basis. Read about it until it clicks. It’s okay if you don’t spend all your time devoted to someone else’s life, but putting in just some time—even if it’s idle thought time while you work—can be beneficial.

By definition , empathy means getting in the emotional dirt with someone else. Allowing their experiences to resonate with your own and responding appropriately. It’s okay to offer advice or optimism, but empathy also requires that you wait for the right space to do that. If someone’s on the verge of tears, or sharing some deep pain, don’t make light of it and don’t try to minimize the hurt. Be mindful of how they must feel and allow them space to feel it.

Social Skills

Summing up all social skills in one section of an article would do about as much justice to the topic as if we snuck in a brief explainer on astrophysics. However, the tools you develop in the other four areas will help you resolve a lot of social problems that many adults still wrestle with. As Goleman explains, your social skills affect everything from your work performance to your romantic life:
Social competence takes many forms – it’s more than just being chatty. These abilities range from being able to tune into another person’s feelings and understand how they think about things, to being a great collaborator and team player, to expertise at negotiation. All these skills are learned in life. We can improve on any of them we care about, but it takes time, effort, and perseverance. It helps to have a model, someone who embodies the skill we want to improve. But we also need to practice whenever a naturally occurring opportunity arises – and it may be listening to a teenager, not just a moment at work.

You can start with the most common form of social problems: resolving a disagreement. This is where you get to put all your skills to the test in a real-world environment. We’ve gone into this subject in-depth here , but we can summarize the basic steps:

• Identify and deal with your emotions: Whenever you have an argument with someone else, things can get heated. If someone involved is emotionally worked up, deal with that problem first. Take time apart to vent, blow off steam on your own, then return to the problem. In a work environment, this may just mean complaining to a friend before you email your boss back. In a romantic relationship, remind your partner that you care about them before criticizing.

• Address legitimate problems once you’re both calm: Once you’re in your right headspace, identify what the conflict is. Before you jump to solutions, make sure you and the other person agree on what the problems really are . Propose solutions that are mutually beneficial and be sympathetic to any concessions the other person may be unwilling to make (but be sure to stand firm on your own).

• End on a cooperative note: Whether in business or pleasure, relationships work best when everyone involved knows that they’re on the same page. Even if you can’t end on a positive note, make sure that the last intention you communicate is a cooperative one. Let your boss/coworker/significant other know that you want to work towards the same goal, even if you have different views.

Not every type of interaction with another person will be a conflict, of course. Some social skills just involve meeting new people , socializing with people of different mindsets , or just playing games . However, resolving conflict can be one of the best ways to learn how to apply your emotional skills. Disputes are best resolved when you know what you want, can communicate it clearly, understand what someone else wants, and come to favorable terms for everyone. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that this involves every other area of the emotional intelligence model.

Extracted from: HERE

Innovation

Types of innovation

• Product 

When we think about innovation we often consider the innovation of products. We are all familiar with new electronic devices, such as the iPad - this is a typical type of product innovation.

• Process 

We consider less often how a product has been produced: for example, the manufacturing technology behind the production of the iPad. This is called process innovation. 

• Service 

Service companies provide innovative services to their customers instead of products. Credit cards and internet banking are familiar examples of service types of innovation. 

• Business model 

Business model innovation involves making changes to the ways a company creates value for its customers and how the company captures the value from the innovation. Examples of this are Amazon, the internet bookstore, and ‘no-frills’ airlines. 

• Organisational 

Organisational innovation is also referred to as managerial innovation. This involves fundamental changes in practices, processes, and the structure of how the activities within the business are managed. Examples are lean manufacturing, total quality management, outsourcing, and the supply chain. 

Levels of innovation 

• Incremental 

Incremental innovation could be described as taking a successful product/service/process and improving it incrementally. An example could be the different generations of iPads designed by Apple: each subsequent generation of iPad is improved, with better resolution and a more streamlined casing. 

• Radical 

Radical innovation happens less frequently but has a huge impact. An obvious example is the invention of internet, which has had an impact on people worldwide. 

• Disruptive 

When we consider disruptive innovation, we are focusing on the consequences of change. Digital imaging, for example, was a technological change which for some had a disruptive effect: this innovation impacted on Kodak’s core capability, in they didn’t manage to switch successfully from film to digital imaging. It is not only technology, however, which can be disruptive: a business model can also be disruptive, requiring companies to adapt. 

© University of Leeds

Course: Innovation: the Fashion Industry