First breath of a dolphin

QUESTION Are dolphins, porpoises and whales born underwater?

DOLPHINS, porpoises and whales are born underwater. However, as they are mammals, they must be brought to the surface immediately to take their first breath.

The gestation period for most whale species, which includes dolphins and porpoises, is ten to 12 months. They are born tail first so they can be supplied with oxygen through the placenta until the very last moment.

When the calf’s blowhole emerges, it is guided swiftly to the surface by the mother to take its first breath.

Calf and mother are linked by a short umbilical cord connected to the placenta, which severs naturally at a weak spot shortly after birth.

If calves were born head first, they could drown during a complicated labour in which the umbilical cord detaches too soon.

Killer whales, who travel in groups called pods, help each other to give birth. An aunt or sister will assist the new mother in nudging her calf to the surface. Some dolphin species have female birthing partners known as midwives.

Kim Lyle, Bangor, Gwynedd.

QUESTION What is the longest recorded skid by a motor vehicle?

THIS is the six-mile skid accidentally achieved by Craig Breedlove in his jet-powered Spirit of America in 1964.

From the first land speed record in 1914 with Lydston Hornsted attaining 124 mph on the banked circuit at Brooklands, Surrey, Britons dominated the sport, holding the record for 20 out of the next 22 attempts.

This culminated with Donald Campbell’s famous run in Bluebird CN7 in 1964 at Lake Eyre Salt Flats, Australia, when he became the first man to top 400mph — 403.1 mph to be precise.

Tired of the British scooping all the records, the Americans began building jet-powered vehicles rather than wheeldriven motorcars.

Craig Breedlove’s 407.5 mph set in Spirit of America, a three-wheeled turbojet vehicle cobbled together from an old USAF F-86 Sabre fighter, in September 1963 was initially deemed unofficial.

The vehicle breached governing body FIA’s regulations: it had only three wheels and was not wheel-driven since its jet engine did not supply power to the axles.

Later, the Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme created a non-wheeldriven category and ratified Spirit of America’s time.

In October 1964, Breedlove attempted to better his record. On his first run in Spirit of America at Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, he became the first driver to smash the 500 mph barrier, setting a new record of 526.3 mph.

However, at the end of his second run, the vehicle lost its parachute brakes and went into an uncontrollable six-mile skid across the flats.

It culminated by ploughing through a row of telephone poles, landing nose down in a brine pond.

The battered Breedlove famously clambered out of his car announcing: ‘And for my next act, I’m going to set myself on fire!’

According to Guinness Book of World Records, the longest skidmarks recorded on a public road were 950 ft long.

They were left by a Jaguar involved in an accident on the M1 near Luton on June 30, 1960.

Evidence given in the subsequent High Court case Hurlock v. Inglis et al indicated a speed ‘in excess of 100mph before the application of the brakes’.

Mike Everall, Milton Keynes, Bucks.

QUESTION Did a solar eclipse stop a war?

THE Battle of Halys, also known as the Battle of the Eclipse, of 585 BC ended a war between the Medes and the Lydians. The Medes were an ancient Iranian people whose 6th century empire stretched to the borders of Lydia, a kingdom in western Asia Minor, in modern western Turkey. When King Cyaxares of Medes extended his empire into Lydian lands, this brought him into conflict with King Alyattes of Lydia.

War reached its climax at the River Halys, the modern Kizil Irmak river in Turkey. A solar eclipse halted the fighting, the combatants taking it as a bad omen. This made it the earliest battle for which a date can be determined accurately: May 28, 585 BC.

The solar eclipse is sometimes known as The Eclipse of Thales because, according to The Histories Of Herodotus, it was predicted by the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus.

Herodotus states there were two reasons for the war: not only had the two sides been empire building in Anatolia, but there was also the motive of vengeance. Scythian hunters employed by the Medes had returned emptyhanded and were insulted by Cyaxares.

In revenge, they slaughtered one of his sons and served him up at a banquet. The hunters then fled to Sardis, the capital of the Lydians. When Cyaxares demanded the Scythians be handed over, Alyattes refused. In response, the Medes invaded.

Herodotus explained: ‘War . . . continued for five years, with various success. As, however, the balance had not inclined in favour of either nation, another combat took place in the sixth year, in the course of which, just as the battle was growing warm, day was on a sudden changed into night.

‘This event had been foretold by Thales, the Milesian, who forewarned the Ionians of it, fixing for it the very year in which it actually took place. The Medes and Lydians, when they observed the change, ceased fighting, and were alike eager to have terms of peace agreed on.’

To cement the peace, Alyattes’s daughter was married to Cyaxares’s son. L. P. Norton, Oxford.

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