The Basilisk Lizard, nicknamed the 'Jesus Christ' Lizard, has the amazing ability to be able to walk upon the water. The real basilisk lizard may not be able to kill you by looking at you, like the mythical basilisk. But it is still a pretty weird beast.

The male basilisk has a crest of skin from its skull and to his tail. But that isn't what makes it weird.

When scared the little lizard runs away on its back legs. It can even run across water. Here's how it does it - its feet have a very broad sole and a fringe on its toes. However it only works when the lizard runs fast, as it slows down it starts to go through the surface and then has to swim.  It can run up to one hundred feet across any body of water. The Basilisk's feet, push down, creating a hollow almost like an air bubble in the water. Gathering enough speed, it uses the air to push forward. The lizard pulls its foot upward before the hollow breaks..plunging it into the water. to do this the toes on the foot are pulled together and the entire foot is pulled upward. That means the foot is surrounded only by air as the animal quickly pulls its foot out of the hole.

For a human to do what the basilisk lizard does, they would have to run 65 miles an hour and expend 15 times more energy than a human is able to expend.

The Basilisk Lizards are found in the Central and South American rainforests, usually near rivers or streams. Their diet mainly consists of insects, small invertebrates, flowers, and smaller animals, such as snakes, birds, and fish. They must beware of birds, snakes, fish, and other reptiles and mammals. Their colours can range from green. to brown, to striped, even to red.

Females lay about 2-18 eggs, five to eight times a year. Eggs hatch after about three months and the babies weigh about 2 grams. The female will dig a shallow trench in moist soil and lay the eggs there. Once the eggs are covered, that is the last parental care that they will receive. Once the eggs hatch, the young head into the trees and hunt insects to survive. More here: Biologists Discover How To Walk on Water

Man Walking on Water. Jesus Christ is said to have done it in the bible as well  his disciples- until he stopped believing!

Leonardo de Vinci (the famous inventor, thinker and artist) may have wondered about this, and so he draw his invention for how this could happen. Do you think it worked?

Today there is a firm selling its way of walking on water: The Vacation Gadget Man, Water Gadgets! Hydro Bronc

World's Biggest Balloon: Space bid for world's biggest manned balloon. See also more links here

Plants that Float

Some plants equip their seeds to float with the wind. Dandelion seeds floating in the air are good examples of this. The dandelion is often seen as a lawn pest because of the easily dispersed seeds and the deep root, it is also cultivated both for medicine and for food. The young leaves are used for salad greens and the roots may be roasted and used as a coffee substitute. The flower heads are used for dandelion wine and are good forage for bees. In medicine the roots have been dried and used chiefly as a bitter tonic and laxative.  

Cottonwood seeds and milkweed seeds also float in clouds of fluff. On a windy day, floating seeds can be blown for kilometres. More information here.

Other plants equip their seeds to float in the ocean. Salt would normally kill plants so these seeds have great protection. One example is the coconut, check them out here.

Other things to check out... what is a money float? Why is a horse pulled around in a horse float? Even banks get into floating with "Floating Rates" and companies can also be floated. You may have learned to swim with the help of a swimming float. When were you last enjoying yourself watching a whole lot of parade floats?

There has been need at times for floating drydocks for the repair of ships.

Humans have floating ribs in them and many guns have a floating breech. A plane can have floats and you can eat a root beer float ( a type of ice cream). Bridges have been built that float also. And in a blast from the past for older people, in many European countries milk used to be delivered in a milkfloat.

If you are interested in finding out more about the term bouyancy, then here is a place to start.

Finally you might like to get a bigger sense of wonder by thinking about the idea that Earth floats in space. Do you think this is true? Isn't there an amazing amount of connections in our world based around the idea of floating!

Sinking... the opposite of Floating!

Let's have a look at the idea of sinking now. In conservation terms the idea of carbon dixode sinks has become important. Where land has sunk you can find sink holes (sink holes from teAra encyclopeadia), in some cases sink seas, and houses can get "eaten" by sinkholes (News Article).

Computers rely on heat sinks, but so do a lot of other microprocessors (ships often found in electronic equipment).

Towns and cities are sinking, take Venice for instance.

And of course there have been many shipping disasters , including the worst one which was the steamboat Sultana. When the Mississippi River paddlewheelers boiler exploded, it sank with an estimated 1700 losing their lives.

New Zealand Sinking!

Harwood’s hole is the largest natural sink hole in New Zealand, and at a depth of 176m (15m in diameter) it’s the largest in the southern hemisphere. It is at the top of Takaka Hill and is part of an intricate (complicated) network of hidden limestone caves that run through the hill. Cavers can abseil down into Harwood's depths and emerge at a cave system near Takaka. This is often called spelunking.

In another famous sinking, in 1985 French Commandoes sunk the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace boat.

And then in 1968 one of the more well known New Zealand disasters, the sinking of the Wahine.(Another link here, more shipping disasters here)