Q. How do snakes lay eggs?
A. Many common snakes lay eggs, though not all snakes do. Some snakes, such as rattlers and cottonmouths, are born live. However, when a female snake that lays eggs, such as a python or cobra, is ready to lay her eggs, she will look for a warm, damp place to lay them. Many snakes find the slope of a hill a good place. Then the snake looks for some kind of protection - under a rock or a tree limb, for example. The female uses her body to push out a hole and deposit the eggs in it. A python might lay as many as 100 eggs at once! The female kinking cobra actually builds a nest for her eggs and stays around to take care of them. Most snakes don't get much mothering after they are born; the female lays the eggs and leaves.
Q. Why are clouds different shapes?
A. Clouds take different shapes because they are in different stages of growth. For example, a cumulus cloud begins to form when air near the surface of the Earth is warmed. The little droplets of moisture that form the cloud rise like a hot-air balloon. As the cloud rises, it cools and gathers more moisture, but it doesn't cool off as much as the air around it. Eventually, though, it does cool to the same temperature as the air around it. Then it may begin to spread out. This is how those giant anvil-shaped storm clouds are formed. Sometimes a puffy cumulus cloud will rise and evaporate. Wispy horizontal clouds are formed when the atmosphere's temperature is more stable and the warm air filled with moisture can spread out.