Estonian Pod101 Blog: 2014

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Estonian word of the day - Mushroom

Mushroom - Seen

A mushroom (or toadstool) is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi (Basidiomycota, Agaricomycetes) that have a stem (stipe), a cap (pileus), and gills (lamellae, sing. lamella) or pores on the underside of the cap. These pores or gills produce microscopic spores that help the fungus spread across the ground or its occupant surface.

"Mushroom" describes a variety of gilled fungi, with or without stems, and the term is used even more generally, to describe both the fleshy fruiting bodies of some Ascomycota and the woody or leathery fruiting bodies of some Basidiomycota, depending upon the context of the word.

Forms deviating from the standard morphology usually have more specific names, such as "puffball", "stinkhorn", and "morel", and gilled mushrooms themselves are often called "agarics" in reference to their similarity to Agaricus or their place Agaricales. By extension, the term "mushroom" can also designate the entire fungus when in culture; the thallus (called a mycelium) of species forming the fruiting bodies called mushrooms; or the species itself.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Estonian word of the day - Whale

Whale - vaal

Whale (origin Old English hwæl from Proto-Germanic *hwalaz) is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to the suborder Odontoceti (toothed whales). This suborder includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga whale. The other Cetacean suborder, Mysticeti (baleen whales), comprises filter feeders that eat small organisms caught by straining seawater through a comblike structure found in the mouth called baleen. This suborder includes the blue whale, the humpback whale, the bowhead whale and the minke whale. All cetaceans have forelimbs modified as fins, a tail with horizontal flukes, and nasal openings (blowholes) on top of the head.

Whales range in size from the blue whale, the largest animal known to have ever existed at 30 m (98 ft) and 180 tonnes (180 long tons; 200 short tons), to pygmy species such as the pygmy sperm whale at 3.5 m (11 ft). Whales inhabit all the world's oceans and number in the millions, with annual population growth rate estimates for various species ranging from 3% to 13%. Whales are long-lived, humpback whales living for up to 77 years, while bowhead whales may live for over a century.

Human hunting of whales from the 17th century until 1986 radically reduced the populations of some whale species. Whales have appeared in literature since the time of the Old Testament, play a role in Inuit creation myths, and are revered by coastal people in Ghana and Vietnam.

Pages

Saturday, November 22, 2014

goose-hani

Friday, November 21, 2014

chimney - korsten

rat - rott

frankfurter - viiner

Tyre - rehv

Friday, October 31, 2014

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Friday, October 10, 2014

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Sunday, January 19, 2014