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April 16, 2015American English edition
Issue Number 247
In this issue
Fairy circle and skin patternsPopes message angers
TurkeySurprising whale carcass found7th Summit of the AmericasNew
power line winnerChinas Qingming dayPrehistoric art copiedWar camel
in AustriaDelivery company takeoverSpider fear experimentTambora
200 years agoUniversity attack in KenyaBird hunting in MaltaAtom
smasher restartsNigerian schoolgirls rememberedNew dwarf
dragonsGravitational lensingThe Great Dying cause?UNESCOs Education
for All reportGlossary Crossword and Wordsearch Puzzle
Covered statue of Cecil Rhodes at Cape Town University (insert:
the statue before the Rhodes Must Fall protest)
For 81 years the statue of a man seated in an armchair has
looked out over the campus of the University of Cape Town, in South
Africa. On April 9, watched by a crowd of cheering students, a
crane lifted the heavy statue off its stone plinth. As it was taken
down some protesters put red paint on the seated figure. Others
danced on the empty plinth, as the bronze statue of Cecil Rhodes
was loaded onto a truck and taken away.
The universitys 30-member council had voted to remove the
monument the day before. The council is made up of students and
teaching staff. The vote fol-lowed a month-long campaign to have
the statue taken down. It was called Rhodes Must Fall. Council
members said that they had spoken with many people who study and
work at the university. The majority thought that it honored a
person who did many bad things. Rhodes, most
of them said, was a racist. He stole land from local people and
became rich by paying black laborers, or workers, low wages.
Cecil Rhodes was born in Britain in 1853. His father was a
priest. As a young man, Rhodess health was poor. His elder brother
had moved to south-ern Africa where he had set up a cotton farm.
Then, this part of Africa was one of Britains many colonies.
Rhodess fa-ther thought that warmer weather might improve his sons
health. So Rhodes was sent to join his brother. He arrived in
southern Africa in 1870, aged 17.
A few years earlier diamonds had been discovered in a place
called Kim-berley. Rhodes and his brother decid-ed to give up
cotton farming and move to the diamond fields. Within a few years
Rhodes had made a lot of money. Later, he set up the famous De
Beers
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diamond company. At the age of 20, Rhodes sailed back to Britain
and went to Oxford University.
On his return to southern Af-rica, Rhodes became a politician.
He was elected to the Cape Colony parliament. This ruled over what
is now South Africa. Between 1890 and 1896 Rhodes was the prime
minister of the Cape Colony. During this time he passed sever-al
laws that reduced the rights of black people.
After leaving politics, Rhodes set up several new companies. He
used his wealth to get permission from tribal leaders to mine for
met-als and minerals on their land. Often his companies would take
over large areas. Some of these places were eventually named after
him. Zimba-bwe was formerly called Rhodesia. What used to be
Northern Rhodesia is now Zambia.
Rhodes became convinced that the British were superior to all
other peoples. He thought that the more of the world the British
controlled the better it would be for the human race. His dream was
for Britain to take control of most of the eastern side of Africa.
He wanted to build a railway from the Cape (or South Af-rica) to
Cairo (the capital of Egypt). A famous cartoon of this time shows
Rhodes standing on the continent of Africa. One foot is in the Cape
and the other in Egypt. At the same time he is holding up a
telegraph wire.
Rhodes died from heart failure in 1902 aged 48. He left much of
his large fortune to Oxford University. He gave instructions that
it was to be used for a special type of schol-arship. This has
become one of the most famous scholarship programs in the world. At
first, it was set up for young men from Britains col-onies to study
at the university.
Therefore people living in New Zealand, Australia, South
Afri-ca, and Canada could apply. Even though they were not British
colo-nies, Rhodes also included the U.S. and Germany in the
program.
Over the years the rules for Rhodes scholarships have changed.
Now 83 students go to Oxford each year. They can come from many
other places such as Zimbabwe, Bermuda and Hong Kong. Nowadays,
black South African students are also selected. Those that win
these scholarships are known as Rhodes scholars. Perhaps two of the
best-known Rhodes schol-ars are Bill Clinton and Tony Abbott. Mr.
Clinton is a former president of the U.S. Mr. Abbott is the current
Australian prime minister.
Famous cartoon of Rhodes standing on the continent of Africa
while holding a telegraph wire
Rhodess grave is in the Matopos hills in Zimbabwe. In the past
some people have said that his remains should be dug up and
returned to Britain. Yet this has never happened. Many buildings in
South Africa are named after him. Rhodes provided money for the
Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, in South Africa. He also donated
the land on which the
University of Cape Town was built. This is why a statue of
Rhodes was put up in the grounds of the university.
In 1910 Britain agreed to hand over the running of South Africa
to Afrikaners. These were white peo-ple descended mostly from Dutch
and German settlers. Their ancestors had moved to southern Africa
many years before. In 1948 the governing National Party introduced
apartheid. This segregated the races. Certain places were for white
people only. Black people were not allowed to vote in
elections.
The African National Congress (ANC) was founded in 1912. It was
set up by people who were an-gry about the unfairness of what was
happening in South Africa. In 1960 the South African government
banned the ANC. Some ANC lead-ers were sent to prison, including
Nelson Mandela (1918 2013).
In 1989, F. W. de Klerk became South Africas president. He
de-clared that he would work with the ANC to end apartheid. Mr.
Man-dela and the other ANC prisoners were released in 1990.
Elections, in which black people were allowed to vote for the first
time, took place in 1994. Mr. Mandela, who had been a prisoner for
27 years, was elected as the president.
The ANC has won all the elec-tions since Mr. Mandela stepped
down in 1999. Jacob Zuma is its current leader and South Africas
president. The ANC has been in power for 21 years. Yet the country
has many problems. Many thou-sands of black South Africans still
live in poverty. Few disagree with the removal of Rhodess statue.
Yet many believe that the inequalities in South Africa today have
more to do with the present than the countrys past.
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FAIRY CIRCLES AND SKIN CELLS
In nature, similar patterns on a small and a much larger scale
are rare. However, scientists working at a university in Japan have
found a strange match. They noticed that fairy circle patterns and
tiny pat-terns formed by skin cells are sim-ilar. This, the
scientists say, is very, very unusual.
Fairy circles in Namibia (Thorsten Becker)
Fairy circles are one of natures greatest mysteries. No one
knows how they form, or what creates them. Most fairy circles are
found in Namibia, in southern Africa. There, some grassland areas
are covered in them. Fairy circles are round bar-ren patches of
land. Researchers have been trying to work out what causes these
circular shapes for over 40 years. There are several ideas, or
theories.
The circles were thought to be permanent. Yet, studies over long
periods of time have shown that this is not true. The circular
shapes seem to grow bigger very slowly. The largest ones have a
diameter of 40 feet (12 meters). Its thought that some bigger
circles last for as long as 75 years before they die. When this
happens, the surrounding grasses begin to regrow inside them.
Eventually, the barren patches are covered over and they
disappear.
Local people say that spirits make the round patches. They
believe that their dead ancestors become these
god-like spirits. Therefore, to them, the fairy circles are the
footprints of the gods.
In the past, scientists have sug-gested that several different
things cause the circles. One theory is that another type of plant
leaves a form of poison, or toxin, in the soil. So nothing else
will grow. Another idea is that something coming up from deep under
the ground creates the rings. This could be radioactivity or
poisonous gases. A more recent theory says that small insects are
to blame. Called sand termites, they feed on the grass roots. Yet,
so far, none of these ideas have been shown to be true.
The scientists in Japan looked at satellite pictures of fairy
circles. Using a computer, they drew lines halfway between each
circle and the ones nearest to it. On the ground these lines would
be like boundaries, which cannot be seen. One circles boundaries
form the boundaries of several others. The scientists call the
surrounding circles neighbours. The computer then calculated how
many neighbours surrounded each fairy circle.
Similar patterns: fairy circles in Namibia (left) and
microscopic skin cells (right) (OIST)
Some time ago other research-ers did a similar thing with skin
cells and their neighbours. When they compared the fairy circle and
skin cell results, the scientists were amazed. They matched. Most
fairy circles and skin cells have six neigh-bours. Whats more, the
percentage of fairy circles with four, five, six,
seven, eight, and nine neighbours is the same.
The scientists do not know what causes fairy circles. Yet, they
now suspect that it has something to do with fighting for space.
This is what creates this type of pattern in skin cells. The
scientists say that any future theories about fairy cir-cles will
need to explain why these two patterns are so similar.
POPES ARMENIAN MESSAGE
Pope Francis is the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. On
April 12, he led a special religious ser-vice. During it the pope
spoke about genocide in Armenia. Genocide is the deliberate killing
of large num-bers of people from one ethnic group or nation. Pope
Franciss words an-gered Turkeys leaders. They insist that what he
said was both untrue and historically incorrect.
The religious service, or Mass, was held at St Peters Basilica.
This large church is part of the Vatican, or headquarters of the
Roman Catholic faith. The Mass was arranged to commemorate the
100th anniversary of what many people call the Armenian Geno-cide.
Karekin the Second, the leader of the Armenian Church, took
part.
Armenia has a population of about three million. It is a small
mountainous country. To the west it shares a border with Turkey.
Armenia was the first Christian nation. It adopted Christianity as
its official religion in 301 BCE. In ancient times Armenia was a
sepa-rate kingdom. In later years it was part of both the Persian
and Ot-toman Empires. In 1922 commu-nist Russia took over, or
annexed,
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April 16, 2015 Newsademic.com American English edition page
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Armenia. The country then became part of the Russian-led Soviet
Union. In 1990 Armenia declared that it was an independent nation.
This was when the Soviet Union was starting to break up.
Karekin the Second (left) and Pope Francis
Disagreements between Turkey and Armenia date back to 1914.
Then, Turkey, which is a Muslim country, was the center of the
Ot-toman Empire. During the First World War (1914 1918) Turkey and
Russia were on opposing sides. There was fighting along the border
between the Ottoman Empire and Russia. This was where many
Ar-menians lived.
Turkish leaders began to mis-trust the Armenians. They accused
them of helping Russia. Between 1914 and 1918 many thousands of
Armenians were forced to move to other parts of the Ottoman Empire.
Many people believe that, at this time, Turkish soldiers
deliberately killed over one million Armenians. Thousands of other
Armenians are thought to have died between 1918 and 1923. Today,
many claim that Turkey was responsible for the deaths of 1.5
million Armenians. Nowadays, this type of mass killing is called
genocide.
However, Turkish officials and many of the countrys historians
say that this is untrue. They ad-mit that over 300,000 Armenians
died between 1914 and 1923. Yet none were deliberately killed,
or
murdered. The deaths, the officials claim, were caused by civil
war, disease and hunger. They insist that there was no genocide. In
Turkey it is against the law to say that hun-dreds of thousands of
Armenians were murdered.
What happened in Armenia 100 years ago is a difficult subject.
Many world leaders do not talk about it. If it is mentioned they do
not use the word genocide. This is because they dont want to upset
the Turkish gov-ernment.
In 1967 a large memorial was built in Yerevan, Armenias capital
city. It is called the Tsitsernakaberd. In Armenia, April 24, is
Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Each year, on this day,
thousands of Ar-menians gather at the memorial to remember all
those who died be-tween 1915 and 1923.
The Tsitsernakaberd memorial, in Yerevan
Serzh Sargsyan, Armenias pres-ident, attended the service at St
Pe-ters. Mr. Sargsyan said that Pope Franciss words sent a powerful
message to those who deny the Ar-menian Genocide.
RARE WHALE FOUND
A reporter was recently walking along a remote beach in
Australia. The beach is near the town of Ex-mouth on the countrys
northwest coast. The reporter came across a dead whale-like
creature. It was
lying on the sand, above the high tide area. He told local
wildlife offi-cials what he had seen.
The officials went to look at the carcass. They were sure that
it was a type of whale. Yet they did not know what species it was.
A pow-erful storm had struck this part of Australia a few weeks
before. The whale had probably died at sea. It was then washed up
on the beach by the rough seas. The dead whale was 19 feet (5.7
meters) long. It was a female and seemed to be a juvenile, or not a
fully-grown adult.
The officials took a sample from the dead whale and arranged a
DNA test. The results showed that it was an Omuras whale. These sea
crea-tures are very rare. Scientists from Japan only identified the
species in 2003. This was after they carried out DNA tests on
samples taken from whales caught a long time ago. Since then only a
few Omuras whales have been recorded. They were seen around
Indonesia, the Philippines and in the Sea of Japan.
Not much is known about this type of whale. Some marine
re-searchers believe that they can grow to lengths of 38 feet (11.6
meters). The females are probably bigger than males. The creatures
upper parts are dark grey. Its lower body is much lighter. Omuras
whale is one of the smallest of the baleen whale species.
All whales, dolphins, and por-poises are known as cetaceans.
There are two types of cetacean: those with baleen plates and those
with teeth. Dolphins and porpoises have teeth. Most baleen whales
are bigger than toothed whales. Blue whales, which are the largest
animal in the world, have baleen plates. These whales can be 98
feet (30 me-ters) long.
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Baleen whales have comb-like filters or bristles attached to
their upper jaws. These whales will take in large mouthfuls of
water. This is then pushed out, or expelled, through the filters.
Some baleen whales do this with their tongues. The bristles filter
out any fish or small marine creatures that are in the water. These
are then swallowed.
Omuras whale (Geof Parry and Department of Parks and Wildlife,
Western Australia)
Omuras whales have been seen lunge feeding. This is when a
ba-leen whale swims up to a school, or group, of fish. It then
tries to engulf as many fish as possible in a mouth-ful of
water.
The Omuras whale found on the beach is the first to be seen in
Western Australia. The discovery is important, as it will help
scientists learn more about this rare species. After samples were
taken, the dead whale was buried in the sand. The skeleton will be
dug up in a few years time. It can then be used for further
scientific research or dis-played in a museum.
7TH SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS
A large meeting, called the 7th Summit of the Americas, was held
on April 10 and 11, in Panama. The meeting took place in Panama
City, the countrys capital. Pana-mas president, Juan Carlos Varela,
hosted the summit. The meeting had
extra importance. For the first time Cuba was invited.
The first Summit of the Americas was in 1994. In recent years
these meetings have taken place every three years. The last one was
in Colombia in 2012. The leaders of about 30 nations from North,
South, and Central America and Caribbean countries usually attend.
This part of the world is often called the West-ern Hemisphere.
These summits are organized so the leaders can talk about subjects
that affect this hemi-sphere. Examples are: trade, climate change,
human rights, and criminal drug gangs.
The nations that are invited to these meetings are members of a
group called the Organization of American States (OAS). Cuba was
expelled from this group over 40 years ago. This was at the
insistence of countries like the U.S. and Can-ada. At the last two
summits the exclusion of Cuba caused disagree-ments. Nearly all the
OASs mem-bers argued that it should be allowed to rejoin.
In 1956 Fidel Castro started a revolution in Cuba. He led a
group of fighters, or rebels. After two years of fighting, Castros
rebel army captured Havana, Cubas cap-ital city. Soon after taking
control, Fidel Castro declared that Cuba was a communist state. His
government would now own all the businesses, factories and houses.
Other political parties were banned. Many Ameri-can businesses in
Cuba were tak-en over.
Not all Cubans were happy that their country had become a
com-munist state. Thousands decided to leave. Many went to live in
Florida, which is one of the U.S.s 50 states. Florida is less than
100 miles (160 kilometers) across the sea from
Cuba. In 1959 the governments of the U.S. and Cuba stopped
speaking with each other. This is known as breaking off diplomatic
relations. The following year the U.S. imposed an economic
blockade, or trade em-bargo, on Cuba. This embargo still exists. It
means that American com-panies are not allowed to sell any-thing to
Cuba, or buy goods made in Cuba.
One year after the embargo be-gan, the American government
se-cretly helped to organize an attack on Cuba. It became known as
the Bay of Pigs invasion. Fidel Cas-tros forces easily defeated the
in-vading force. After this Fidel Castro decided to work with the
communist Russian-led Soviet Union.
Russia continued to help Cuba. Yet when the Soviet Union began
to break up in 1990, Cuba lost its big-gest supporter. In 2008,
after run-ning Cuba for 49 years, Fidel Cas-tro decided to step
down. He was 81 years old and in poor health. It was agreed that
his younger brother, Ral, would take his place.
Leaders at the 7th Summit of Americas
At the end of last year, Barack Obama, the president of the
U.S., made an announcement. It surprised many people. Mr. Obama
declared that the U.S. would start to speak and work with Cuba. At
the same time, Ral Castro made a similar statement. This was the
first time that the two countries had official-ly communicated for
over 50 years. Now plans are being made for the
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U.S. and Cuba to open embassies in each others capital cities.
The trade embargo may end. Yet, this will probably be done
gradually.
Ral Castro and Barack Obama shake hands
At the Panama summit in Pana-ma, Ral Castro made a long speech.
He said that Mr. Obama was not re-sponsible for things that
happened a long time ago. Later, the two men met each other in a
separate room. They talked for a short time. This was the first
official meeting be-tween the two countries for over half a
century. Mr. Obama described the meeting as historic. Many of the
other OAS members praised Mr. Obama and Ral Castro for agree-ing to
renew diplomatic relations.
NEW TRANSMISSION TOWERS
In many countries overhead cables transport electricity from
power stations to homes and workplaces. These high voltage power
lines are suspended from tall metal towers. A few years ago a power
line network company in Britain approved a new design. The first of
its new electric cable carrying structures have just been
built.
In different parts of the world the towers that carry high
voltage power lines have different names. In many places they are
called trans-mission towers. Yet in Britain, and some other
European countries, they are known as pylons, or electricity
pylons. The word pylon comes from the Ancient World. A pylon is
a type of tall Ancient Egyptian tem-ple gateway.
In Britain, the first electricity py-lons were built about 90
years ago. Their design has never changed. They have a very strong
steel lat-tice design. Larger pylons have three arms. They are
about 164 feet (50 meters) high. Many peo-ple think that
electricity pylons are ugly. They complain that long lines of these
transmission towers ruin countryside views and landscapes. So far,
about 88,000 metal pylons have been erected in the UK.
Lattice steel tower pylon
Electricity companies in most countries now have to change the
way they make, or generate, some of their electricity. Less is to
be made from burning fossil fuels (oil, natu-ral gas and coal) in
power stations. Making electricity from fossil fuels creates carbon
dioxide (CO
2). Most
scientists are sure that this extra CO2
in the atmosphere is acting like a greenhouse. They believe that
it is causing average world temperatures to rise and climate change
in certain parts of the world.
In the future more and more elec-tricity is to be made from
whats
known as renewables. Wind, so-lar, hydro, and tidal power are
all renewable energy. Most renewable energy will be generated in
places far from towns and cities. Many more power lines and pylons
will therefore be needed to take this electricity to where it will
be used.
The new T-pylons (National Grid)
The National Grid Company runs the power transmission network in
Britain. Four years ago, bosses at the company decided to set up a
competition. The old style metal pylons work well. However, the
Na-tional Grid bosses thought that new technologies and materials
could be used to make something better. The competition was for a
new pylon design. People and companies were invited to send their
ideas to the Na-tional Grid. The company received over 200 entries.
They came from all around the world. A design cre-ated by Bystrup,
a firm of architects from Denmark, was judged to be the winner.
Bystrups design is shaped like the letter T.
The new T-pylon is 36 metres are (118 feet) high. This is much
short-er than the old lattice metal tower. Instead of arms, the
T-pylon has two diamond-shaped frames. These hold the power cables.
The frames hang from either end of the top part of the T. They
carry the same number of power lines, but in a much smaller
area.
The T-pylon has many other ad-vantages. Each one can be put up
in
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April 16, 2015 Newsademic.com American English edition page
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a day. This is far quicker than the old towers. Most
importantly, lines of T-pylons can be set up to follow the contours
of the land. They can blend into the landscape and are therefore
not so ugly. The old steel lattice towers had to be built in a
straight line.
The National Grid has put up its first new T-pylons. Six have
been erected at one of its training centers. There, they will be
used to teach workers how to string power ca-bles between them. The
T-pylons will not replace all the old lattice towers. However, they
will be used to carry all new high voltage elec-tricity cables.
TOMB-SWEEPING DAY
In China, at the beginning of April, many people take part in an
import-ant festival. Its called Qingming (or Ching Ming), which
means pure brightness. In English Qingming is known as
Tomb-Sweeping Day. This yearly event is both a happy and a sad
day.
This year Qingming was on April 5. In China the festival marks
the beginning of spring. At this time of year, days in the northern
hemi-sphere are getting longer and the weather warmer. This is when
farm-ers traditionally begin preparing the fields to plant new
crops. Most people try to spend the day of the festival outdoors.
Many fly colorful kites. Some even do this after dark. Small
lanterns are tied to the kites, or kite strings, to light them
up.
At Qingming people commemo-rate their ancestors. These are long
dead relatives and family members who died recently. This is
import-ant for many Chinese people. For some, ancestor worship is a
type of
religious faith. These people believe that, after dying, their
ancestors spirits live under ground. These spirits look after the
living members of the family. The spirits homes are their tombs, or
graves. So it is im-portant to keep these places clean and
tidy.
Not everyone believes in ances-tor worship. However, most want
to remember and show respect to family members who have died. They
do this at Qingming. On this day many families visit the graves of
their ancestors. Cemeteries, or graveyards, can be very crowded on
Tomb-Sweeping Day.
Cemetery during the Qingming festival
People clean the headstones and areas around their ancestors and
relatives graves. Weeds are cleared away and fresh soil may be
added to the grave. Offerings of tea, food, and flowers are placed
on the tombs. People burn sticks of incense and fake paper money as
an offering to their ancestors. Often, they put types of food on
the graves that their relatives liked during their life-times. This
is done to make sure that those buried in the tomb have what they
need.
In recent years, shops have be-gun to sell paper copies of many
modern-day items just before the Qingming festival. These include
paper cell phones, tablet computers, cars, and even houses. People
buy these replicas and then burn them at their ancestors graves.
For some, it
is a serious symbol of offering their ancestors things that are
valuable today. For others, its a family joke or way of keeping
their ancestors up-to-date with modern day tech-nology.
As so many people visit cemeter-ies on the same day, there can
be huge traffic jams at Qingming. Trains and buses are very
crowded. In recent years people have complained about the extra
smoke and air pollution. Nowadays, the Chinese government tries to
persuade people not to burn so many paper items. It says flowers
should be left at the tombs instead. Other non-polluting ideas are
read-ing poems and playing audio and video recordings.
CHAUVET CAVE REPLICA
On April 10, the president of France, Franois Hollande, traveled
to Val-lon-Pont-dArc. This village is in southern France. There,
Mr. Hol-lande visited a recently completed replica, or copy, of a
well-known cave. The original, called the Chau-vet cave, is near
the village. It con-tains some of the worlds oldest and
best-preserved prehistoric art. The paintings inside the cave are
be-tween 32,000 and 30,000 years old.
Replica Chauvet cave building
Three speleologists (speleolo-gy is the study of caves), or
local cavers, found the cavern in 1994. They discovered it by
accident. The
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April 16, 2015 Newsademic.com American English edition page
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caves entrance had been blocked by a rockfall. This happened
about 22,000 years ago. Therefore, the cavers were the first people
to enter the cavern since prehistoric times. They were amazed by
what they saw. Many of the caves walls are covered in animal
drawings and paintings. The cave is named after one of the
speleologists, Jean-Marie Chauvet.
Replica Chauvet cave painting
There are several large caves in southern France that contain
this type of prehistoric art. The ancient humans who lived in this
part of the world 32,000 years ago are often called Cro-Magnon
Man.
Neanderthals were an early hom-inid, or type of human. From the
dis-covery of ancient bones and teeth, its known that Neanderthals
were living in Europe at least 300,000 years ago. Their name comes
from a place in Germany. This was where some of the first
Neanderthal bones were found in the 1850s.
After the discovery of Neander-thal bones, two ancient skeletons
were found in southern France. They were dug up in a cave-like rock
shel-ter. Scientists compared the Nean-derthal bones with those
found in the rock shelter. There were several differences. For
example, the shape of the skulls were not the same. The new ancient
humans from southern
France were named Cro-Magnon Man. (Cro is a local word that
means hole. Magnon was the name of the person who owned the land
that in-cluded the rock shelter.)
However, later, it became known that these ancient humans were
the ancestors of modern-day humans (Homo sapiens). They originally
evolved in Africa. After moving to the Middle East, they arrived in
Europe about 44,000 years ago. Therefore Cro-Magnon Man, or the
Cro-Magnon people, were the an-cestors of modern-day humans or Homo
sapiens. This meant that the Cro-Magnon name was no longer needed.
Yet, today, it is still used to describe the ancient humans who
lived in southern France.
Within 5,000 years of Homo sapi-ens arrival in Europe, all the
Nean-derthals had died out. No one knows why. Some scientists
believe that there was a change in the climate. Oth-ers say that
Neanderthals could not compete with Homo sapiens. A dis-ease, from
which Neanderthals were not immune, is another possibility.
The Chauvet cave has never been opened to the public. Officials
did not want to repeat what hap-pened at another cave. Called
Las-caux, this cave is also in southern France. It was discovered
in 1940. Lascauxs cave art was created about 14,000 years after the
Chau-vet cave paintings.
The Lascaux cave was opened to the public in 1948. Soon, over
1,000 people were visiting it each day. Within eight years moisture
and car-bon dioxide from their breath had damaged the caves ancient
artwork. Lichen, a plant-like organism, began to grow on the walls.
To preserve the paintings, the cave was closed.
The Chauvet cave contains about 1,000 paintings, or drawings.
These
are of 14 animal species. Some of them are now extinct. They
include: the ibex, mammoth, giant stags, horses, bears, rhinos,
lions, and even an owl.
The replica cave is about one kilometre (0.6 miles) from the
real one. It has been made from a steel frame and concrete. The
original caves roof and walls were scanned using 3D
(three-dimensional) tech-nology. Scientists took over 6,000 digital
photographs of all the prehis-toric images. Using these pictures, a
team of artists then copied the paint-ings onto the concrete
walls.
The cost of recreating the cave was 55 million (40 million).
Visi-tors say that it looks exactly like the real one. It will
officially open to the public on 25th April.
WAR CAMEL?
Tulln is a town in Austria. It is not far from Vienna, Austrias
capital city. Recently, work began on building a new shopping
center in the middle of the town. Building workers dug up some old
bones. They seem to be the remains of a large animal. A team of
archaeologists were asked to investigate.
Uncovered camel skeleton in Tulln (Ute Scholz)
At first, the archaeologists thought that the animal was a cow
or horse. Yet, after uncovering the whole skeleton, they realized
it was a camel. Some camel bones have
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been found in Europe before. Most have been dated to Roman
times. However, this is the first time that a complete camel
skeleton has been discovered in a European country.
Dromedary camel (left) Bactrian camel (right).
The skeleton was in an old cel-lar. The house above it may have
fallen, or been knocked, down. This is thought to be the case
because the cellar seems to have been used as a rubbish dump.
Alongside the camels bones, the archaeologists found broken
household pots. They also dug up an old French coin and a medicine
bottle. This type of coin was in use between 1643 and 1715. The
medicine bottle had the name of a pharmacy on it. This store, or
shop, was in Vienna. Its known that it opened in 1628 and closed
down about 40 years later.
The coin and medicine bottle help to date the camels bones to
1683. This was the year of the Battle of Vienna. Then, a large
Ottoman army tried to capture the Austrian capital. The Ottoman
Empire was centerd on modern-day Turkey. This em-pire began around
1300 and lasted for just over 600 years. At its most powerful, it
included large areas of Southeastern Europe, the Middle East and
North Africa.
In 1683 the Ottoman army sur-rounded Vienna. Traditionally,
Ot-toman armies used camels. The an-imals can carry heavy loads.
Also, if food supplies ran short, camels could be killed and eaten.
Two months after Vienna was besieged, a large force of German and
Polish
soldiers arrived. The two opposing armies then fought a daylong
battle. The Battle of Vienna is famous for the largest cavalry
charge in histo-ry. During the battle, 18,000 men on horseback
charged at the Otto-man soldiers. The Ottoman army lost the battle
and withdrew.
There are two types of camel. One has a single hump. Known as a
dromedary, it comes from the Middle East. The other is a Bactrian,
which is found in Central Asia. It has two humps. DNA tests on the
camels bones show that it was a seven-year-old hybrid. Its father
was a Bactrian and its mother a dromedary. Otto-man armies often
used crossbred camels. They are larger and can carry heavier
weights. These camels are also easier to handle.
The Ottomans never captured Tulln. The archaeologists think that
Ottoman soldiers left the camel be-hind or traded it for something
else. To the people of Tulln, the camel must have been an unusual
sight. They may not have known what to feed it. There are no cut
marks on the camels bones. So the animal was not butchered, or cut
up and eaten. The archaeologists think that the camel probably died
a natural death. It was then buried in the old cellar soon
afterwards.
FEDEX AND TNT
On April 7, the FedEx Company an-nounced that it planned to
acquire, or buy, TNT Express. Both compa-nies are large
international delivery, or shipping, firms. FedEx is based in the
U.S. TNT Express headquar-ters is in the Netherlands. Soon after
FedExs announcement, TNT Ex-press shareholders, or owners, said
that they agreed with the plan.
Organisations and people use companies like FedEx and TNT
Ex-press to pick up and transport their consignments. These
include: mail, packages, parcels, freight, and car-go. The
companies can quickly de-liver these shipments to destinations all
around the world.
There are two other large deliv-ery companies that offer similar
ser-vices. These are UPS (United Parcel Service) and DHL. UPS is
another American company. Three Amer-icans started DHL in the
1960s. (The company was named after the initials of their
surnames.) Deutsche Post bought DHL about 15 years ago. Germanys
government used to own this organisation. It sold Deut-sche Post to
private investors and shareholders in 1995. A government owned
business being sold in this way is called a privatisation.
At first, FedEx was called Feder-al Express. Frederick W. Smith
set up the company. He is still the com-panys boss. Federal Express
began its operations in 1973. Then, con-signments shipped from one
city in the U.S. to another took a long time. Sending shipments to
other coun-tries took many weeks. Mr. Smith decided to change this.
His new company offered to deliver items to larger cities in the
U.S. the next day, or overnight.
Federal Express grew very quick-ly. Within ten years the
companys annual sales, or revenues, were $1 billion (680 million).
In 2000 the company was renamed FedEx. It now has five different
divisions. To-day, the company owns 660 cargo planes, and over
100,000 vehicles.
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It operates in almost every coun-try and territory in the world.
Over 300,000 people work for FedEx. The company delivers about ten
billion consignments every business day (Monday to Friday).
The TNT Company began in 1946 in Australia. Ken Thomas founded
it. At first, Mr. Thomas only had one truck. He called his company
Thom-as Nationwide Transport (TNT). Later, TNT merged, or joined
to-gether, with another transport com-pany called Alltrans. The
company then started to expand quickly. By the 1980s it had
operations in 180 countries. At that time, most of TNTs business
was in Europe.
TNT was the first transport company to own its own planes. These
were used to deliver parcels overnight to different cities in
Eu-rope. Today, TNT Express owns 54 aircraft. In 1996 a Dutch
company called KPN acquired TNT. Then, KPN was a large telecoms and
post-al company. Soon afterwards, KPN decided to separate its
telecoms and postal businesses. TNT Express was sold to investors
and shareholders. Its shares are now listed on the Am-sterdam Stock
Exchange. TNT Ex-press operates all around the world. It has 58,000
workers and collects about one million shipments every business
day.
Buying all the TNT Express shares will cost FedEx 4.4 billion
(3.2 billion). Before this happens, TNT Express will have to sell
all its planes. Under European Union (EU) rules, or regulations,
American companies are not allowed to own a
fleet of aircraft in Europe. The boss-es of both companies
believe that their European customers will get a better delivery
service. This, they say, is because of the combination of FedExs
aircraft and TNT Express European road network.
FEAR OF SPIDERS
Researchers in the U.S. have com-pleted a number of experiments
with humans and spiders. They believe that the results show that
many peo-ple are born with a fear of spiders.
There are over 43,000 types of spider. They can be found
every-where in the world except for Ant-arctica. All spiders have
eight legs, but they vary in size. The smallest have a body length
of only 0.015 inches (0.37 millimeter). The larg-est, called the
Goliath birdeater, can have a leg span of 9.8 inches (25
centimeters). All spiders are able to produce silk. It is from this
that they make their webs.
Many people think that spiders are insects. This is incorrect.
Insects bodies have three main segments. They have six legs and
most insects have wings. Spiders are a type of animal called
arachnids. These crea-tures have no wings, eight legs and two main
body parts. Unlike insects, spiders do not have antennae.
Other arachnids include scorpi-ons, mites and ticks. Arachnids
are not able to chew. Spiders have no teeth. They cover their food
with enzymes. These turn the food into a liquid, which the spiders
then suck up. Many living things have en-zymes that help to digest,
or break down, food. Normally they work inside the body.
Nearly all spiders are preda-tors. They catch and eat insects
or
small animals. Many feed on other spiders. Most are venomous.
This means that they have a poisonous bite. Yet only a few spiders
produce poison that is strong enough to harm humans. One of the
most dangerous species is the black widow spider.
Black widow spider
The word arachnid comes from the Ancient Greek word for spi-der.
People who are scared of spiders have arachnophobia. This is a
combination of the Greek words for spider and fear. Its thought
that about 4% of people have arachnophobia. If these peo-ple see a
spider they may have a panic attack. Many people dislike or are
scared of spiders. Yet this does not mean that they suffer from
arachnophobia.
Over 250 people helped the re-searchers with their experiment.
Each was shown images on a com-puter screen. Most were meaning-less
shapes. Then, every so often, the researchers added images of
things that many people are known to dislike within the shapes.
These included flies, needles and spiders. They were difficult to
see. The re-searchers timed how long it took people to see these
unpleasant things. Spiders were recognized far quicker than any of
the others. They were quickly picked out even if the spider image
had been deliberately misshaped, or distorted.
Humans first evolved in Africa hundreds of millions of years
ago.
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Then, there were many poisonous spiders in Africa. A bite from
one of these spiders may not have killed these hominoids, or early
humans. Yet it would have made them very ill. The researchers
believe that those who could quickly spot spi-ders may have had an
evolutionary advantage. If so, the ability to see this danger might
have become a part of these hominoids DNA.
TAMBORA ANNIVERSARY
On April 10, 1815 a huge volcano in Indonesia, called Mount
Tambora, exploded. This was the biggest vol-canic event for at
least 10,000 years. Therefore, April 10, this year was the 200th
anniversary of the most pow-erful eruption in recorded history.
Mount Tambora is on the Indone-sian island of Sumbawa. The
volcano first began to erupt in 1812. Before that it had been
quiet, or dormant, for more than 1,000 years. Then, three years
after the first of many small eruptions, the whole volcano suddenly
blew apart. The sound of the explosion was heard 1,553 miles (2,500
kilometers) away.
Tambora was about 14,110 feet (4,300 meters) high and shaped
like a large cone. The eruption blew away the top half of the
mountain. Today, there is a large circular de-pression where the
volcano used to be. This is known as a caldera. These are formed
when the ground sinks or collapses after a large vol-canic
eruption. The Tambora calde-ra is roughly 6.5 kilometres (four
miles) across and 0.75 miles (1.2 kilometers) deep.
The explosion ejected billions of tons of rock, ash and sulfur
gas high into the air. Most of the bigger heavier rocks fell into
the
surrounding sea. They triggered, or set off, four-metre (13
foot) high waves or tsunamis. These then struck other Indonesian
islands. Huge amounts of volcanic ash and sulphur dioxide were
thrown over 25 miles (40 kilometers) into the air. In places 373
miles (600 kilometers) away from Tambora, there was no sunlight for
two days.
All the vegetation on the island of Sumbawa was destroyed. Large
islands, or rafts, of pumice floated on the surrounding sea. Pumice
is a type of light volcanic rock. It is cre-ated when lava and
gases erupt from a volcano. As both cool very quick-ly, air is
trapped inside the rock. This makes pumice very light, which is why
it floats. Six months later, one pumice raft was found near
Calcut-ta, in India. People on ships report-ed seeing islands of
floating pumice near Indonesia for many years after the
eruption.
Mount Tambora caldera (Jialiang Gao)
Within weeks of the eruption, winds high in the atmosphere blew
the ash and sulfur dioxide all around the globe. The tiny particles
of ash blocked out some of the sunlight. The volcanic haze
therefore affect-ed the weather in many countries. Skies that
contain a lot of volcanic ash will reflect some of the sunlight. If
there is a lot of ash in the air sun-sets look much redder than
normal. For many months after the eruption there were very colorful
sunsets in Europe. Today, these sunsets can be
seen in the works of several artists who were painting 200 years
ago.
The volcanic haze in the atmo-sphere caused average world
tem-peratures to drop by roughly 0.7C. This lasted for almost three
years. In Europe and parts of North America, 1816 became known as
the Year Without a Summer. There was snow and frost in June and
July. Rainfall increased. Many crops were ruined and farm animals
died. There were famines in Europe and China. The eruption
disrupted In-dias annual monsoon rains. This led to food shortages
in many parts of Asia. Its estimated that the eruption and tsunamis
killed 80,000 people. Another 90,000 are thought to have died of
starvation.
A team of scientists have recent-ly written a new volcanic
hazard re-port for the United Nations (U.N.). It states that there
is a 30% chance of another Tambora-size eruption within the next
100 years. Indone-sia, the report says, is the most like-ly place
where this might happen.
UNIVERSITY ATTACK IN KENYA
Hundreds of people took part in a candle-lit vigil in Nairobi on
April 6. Many wore black clothes. Nairobi is the capital city of
Kenya. The vig-il was held to remember those who had died when one
of the countrys universities was attacked.
The attack took place on April 2. Then, several gunmen entered
Ga-rissa University College. The town of Garissa is 93 miles (150
kilome-ters) from Kenyas border with So-malia. About 750 students
study at the university. Many are training to be teachers. The
attack began early in the morning when many students were still
asleep or just getting up.
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The gunmen shot and killed two unarmed guards at the entrance to
the university. They then moved from building to building firing
their weapons. About 70% of Ken-yans are Christians. The other 30%
mostly follow the Islamic faith. The gunmen spoke to many of the
stu-dents. Those who could show that they were Muslims were let go.
The Christian students were killed.
Soldiers and armed police then surrounded the university. They
be-gan to take control of the university buildings one by one. The
students hiding in these places were rescued. Eventually, 15 hours
after the attack began, four gunmen were shot dead. Another was
captured. At least 150 people were killed in the attack. Eighty
were wounded. Most of those killed and injured were students.
Several soldiers and police officers were among the dead. Around
580 students were rescued or escaped.
Uhuru Kenyatta president of Kenya
A group called al-Shabaab claimed that it had organized the
university attack. Al-Shabaab is a militant Islamic group. Its name
means the youth, or the boys. This group is based in Somalia. Its
supporters believe that everyone should obey a very strict version
of Islamic law.
For many years Somalia was whats known as a failed state. It was
a lawless nation with no effective government. Militant groups,
such as al-Shabaab, con-
trolled large parts of the country. These included areas next to
Soma-lias border with Kenya.
INDIANOCEAN
Four years ago the African Union (AU), with help from the United
Na-tions (U.N.), decided to intervene in Somalia. Over 50 African
countries are members of the AU. The AU and the U.N. wanted Somalia
to elect its leaders. An elected government, they hoped, would
solve some of Somalias many problems.
Around 9,000 AU soldiers were sent to Somalia. Many are still
there. These soldiers come from Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi,
and Djibouti. By the beginning of 2012, the AU soldiers had forced
all the al-Shabaab gunmen to leave Mogadishu, the capital city. Now
Somalia has an elected president and a parliament. Yet al-Shabaab
has not been defeated. It continues to control areas of southern
Somalia near the border with Kenya. Today, there are about 3,500
Kenyan sol-diers in Somalia.
Al-Shabaab is thought to have 8,000 armed supporters. Two years
ago a small al-Shabaab group at-tacked a shopping center, in
Nai-robi. Nearly 70 people died in this attack. Al-Shabaabs leaders
have demanded that Kenya withdraw all its soldiers from Somalia.
They say that the group will continue to organize attacks in Kenya
until this happens.
After the university attack, Uhu-ru Kenyatta, the president of
Ken-ya, spoke on live television. He said that Kenya would
retaliate. Mr. Kenyatta also announced an increase in the size of
the countrys police force. The next day Kenyan air force planes
attacked parts of So-malia where al-Shabaabs bases are thought to
be.
Many Kenyans blame the gov-ernment for what happened at the
university. They say that, because of previous al-Shabaab attacks,
buildings like the university at Garissa should have been proper-ly
guarded.
BIRD HUNTING VOTE
A referendum was held in Malta on April 11. This is a vote in
which all adults can take part. The refer-endum was to decide if
people can or cannot hunt birds in the spring. The population of
Malta is about 450,000. Around 340,000 people were eligible to
vote.
Turtle dove
After all the votes had been counted, it was announced that
those who wanted spring hunting to continue had won. Yet the result
was very close. Just under 50.4% voted in favor of hunting and
49.6% voted to ban it. The difference was only 2,220 votes. Those
who wanted to stop the spring hunt said that they were
disappointed.
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This map shows countries to which news stories refer in this
issue. Visit www.newsademic.com for more detailed world maps.
ZAMBIA
USA
UK
UAE
TURKEY
SOUTH AFRICA
SOMALIA
RUSSIA
PERU
PANAMANIGERIA
THE
NET
HER
LAN
DS
NAMIBIA
MALTA
KENYA
JAPAN
INDONESIA
FRANCE
ECUADOR
CUBA
CHINA
CHILE
AUSTRIA
AUSTRALIA
ARMENIA
ZIMBABWE
Malta is an archipelago, or group of islands, in the
Mediterranean Sea. The three largest islands are inhab-ited. These
are called Malta, Gozo and Comino. For over 150 years Malta was
controlled by Britain. In 1964 it became an independent country.
The island nation is now part of the European Union (EU). It joined
in 2004.
Malta is between the Italian island of Sicily and the coast of
North Africa. Every year many types of birds migrate from Europe to
Africa and back again. Most lay eggs and raise their chicks during
the spring and summer months in Europe. Then, before the colder
winter weather arrives, they fly south to Africa. In the spring
these birds return to Europe. Malta is therefore a useful stop off
, or resting place, for these migrat-ing birds.
Many years ago large flocks of birds arrived in Malta every
spring and autumn. They stayed for a few days before flying on.
Shooting some of the birds became a tradi-tion. The dead birds were
cooked and eaten. Most bird hunters in Malta are men. They claim
that it is something that their fathers taught them to do.
Common quail
However, in recent years, fewer birds making the journey between
Europe and Africa. Their numbers have declined for several
reasons.
One is loss of habitat, or the places where they like to live
and breed. This means that fewer birds stop off in Malta.
The EU has strict rules about shooting birds. Hunting birds in
springtime is banned in all EU coun-tries except Malta. Wildlife
experts argue that shooting birds in spring is the worst thing to
do. This is because they are killed before they can breed and lay
eggs. In the autumn this is not so important. By this time their
young would be looking after them-selves. Hunting birds in Malta in
au-tumn was not part of the referendum.
When Malta joined the EU, its government asked for permission to
keep spring hunting. The EU agreed, but said that only two types of
bird could be killed. These are turtle doves and quails. The EU
also insisted on strict rules. The spring hunt starts on April 14,
and lasts for
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16 days. Only an agreed number of birds can be killed. Hunters
cannot kill more than two birds per day. They can be fined large
amounts of money, or even sent to prison, if they break the rules.
Last spring about 4,100 turtle doves and 630 quail were shot.
Many of those who voted to ban spring hunting say that the rules
are difficult to enforce. They claim that many hunters ignore them.
Joseph Muscat is Maltas prime minister. He voted to keep spring
hunting. However, he warned the hunters that in the future they
must all obey the rules.
LHC RESTARTS
On April 5, two beams of high-energy particles sped around a
circular tunnel. The 27-kilome-tre (16.8 mile) long tunnel is deep
under the ground below the Swiss-French border. It is part of the
Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC is often called the worlds
biggest physics experiment or the worlds most powerful atom
smasher.
Part of the Hadron collider (CERN)
The LHC is operated by an or-ganisation called CERN (European
Organization for Nuclear Research). The April 5, particle test
marked the restart of the LHC. Scientists use the LHC to send
particles spinning around the long tunnels just under the speed of
light. The particles then
smash into each other. Huge detectors in the tunnel record what
happens.
Two years ago the LHC helped to prove the existence of the Higgs
boson. After this, the LHC was shut down. Over the last 24 months
it has been upgraded. This means that par-ticles can now travel at
even greater speeds through its tunnels.
The Higgs boson was thought to exist. It was a theoretical
particle. (A boson is a type of particle.) A British scientist
called Peter Higgs came up with the idea for a particle that
explained mass. A particles (or an objects) mass is the amount of
matter it contains. Sometimes we confuse mass with weight. Yet an
objects weight is really gravity acting upon its mass. An object of
the same mass would weigh differ-ent amounts on the Earth and on
the Moon. This is because the Moons gravity is weaker.
Nobody really understands ex-actly what mass is or where it
comes from. Yet the Higgs boson would help to explain it. If the
Higgs boson could be found it should show how fundamental particles
get their mass by sticking, or binding, together. For example, by
sticking together, particles form stars, planets, human beings or
any other objects in the Universe. Scientists thought that
something called the Higgs field was responsible for this sticking
togeth-er. Without it, particles would fly around the Universe at
high speed and not form any objects. Detect-ing the Higgs boson
proved that the Higgs field exists.
After the success with the Higgs boson, the scientists want to
use the LHC to detect something else. Its called dark matter.
It is known that gravity (or grav-itational forces) holds each
galaxy together. For instance, in the Milky
Way, it is the gravity created by the Sun that keeps the Earth
(and the other seven planets in the Solar Sys-tem) orbiting around
it. However, about 70 years ago, a problem about gravity and the
Universe was dis-covered. There are not enough stars, planets, gas,
and dust in all the gal-axies to create the amount of gravity
needed to hold them together.
Galaxies do not fly apart. Therefore there must be something
that makes extra gravity, which holds galaxies in place. Whatever
it is, it cannot be seen or easily detect-ed. Scientists call this
mystery sub-stance dark matter. They think that as much as 85% of
all the matter in the Universe is dark matter. Some describe dark
matter as the cosmic web that holds everything together.
Hadron collider collector (CERN)
If particles of dark matter are detected it could change our
under-standing of the Universe. However, scientists at CERN say
that many years of experiments will be needed before this
happens.
BRINGBACKOURGIRLS
Hundreds of young women and girls marched through the center of
Abuja, Nigerias capital city, on April 14. The day was an important
anniversary. It was exactly one year since 276 girls were forcibly
taken from a school in northeastern Nige-ria. Many Nigerians are
angry about
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what happened. They accuse their government of not doing enough
to rescue the girls.
The Nigerian schoolgirls were abducted from a secondary school
in Chibok. This small town is in Borno state, in the northeastern
part of Nigeria. Then, the girls were aged between 16 and 18. Not
all attended the school in Chibok. Some came from other schools in
nearby towns. They had gone to the larger sec-ondary school to take
an important physics exam.
In the early hours of the morning armed men broke into the
school. The men were supporters of Boko Haram. This is an Islamic
mili-tant group. After setting fire to the school, the attackers
ordered the girls to get into several large trucks. These were then
driven to a nearby forest. Some girls managed to jump from the
trucks and escape. Over the next few days and weeks, others managed
to get away. Yet 219 are still missing.
The parents of some missing girls started a campaign. They
called it Bringbackourgirls. This slogan soon spread around the
world. Many people supported it including Michelle Obama, the wife
of the American president. However, the Nigerian army seemed unable
to find where the girls were being kept. If their commanders knew,
they may not have wanted to try to rescue them. This is because it
might have put the girls in greater danger.
A few weeks after the girls were taken, the leader of Boko Haram
spoke. In the past he has said that he wants to set up an Islamic
state in northern Nigeria. Here, everyone would have to follow
strict religious laws. Under these rules, girls would become wives
when they were young. They would not go to school
or have any type of education. A video of the Boko Haram leader
talking about the Chibok girls was posted on the internet. He
explained that they had all become Muslims. Each would be married
to one of Boko Harams fighters, or gunmen.
Over the last six years Boko Haram has carried out hundreds of
attacks in northern Nigeria. These have been on schools, churches,
po-lice stations, and government build-ings. Thousands of people
have died in these attacks. Boko Haram is believed to have between
7,000 and 10,000 armed supporters. Many Nigerians have criticized
the army. This is because it has not been able to defeat Boko
Haram.
Several months ago, Boko Ha-ram fighters crossed into Camer-oon,
Chad and Niger. There, they attacked villages and towns. Nearly
every African country is a member of the African Union (AU). At a
recent AU meeting, it was agreed that soldiers from Nigeria,
Camer-oon, Chad, and Niger would work together. In recent weeks
this joint force has been successfully attack-ing Boko Haram
bases.
There was a presidential election in Nigeria at the end of
March. Mu-hammadu Buhari won. He will take
over from Goodluck Jonathan at the end of May. Mr. Jonathan has
been the countrys president for the last five years. Mr. Buhari is
a former army general. He has said that he will do everything he
can to find the missing girls and bring them home.
WOOD LIZARDS
Researchers working in Ecuador and Peru have discovered three
new species of wood lizard. These small colorful dragon-like
lizards are only found in the northern part of South America and
Panama.
The new discoveries mean that there are now 15 known species of
wood lizard. Ten of them have been found since 2006. Therefore
these South American reptiles have one of the fastest discovery
rates in the animal kingdom.
Rothschilds woodlizard (Pablo Venegas)
The researchers first saw one of the new lizards ten years ago.
They found the 5.1 inch (13-centimeter) long lizard near a village
in Ecua-dor called Alto Tambo. At first, the researchers did not
think that it was a new type of wood lizard. It looked similar to
one that had been found and named over 100 years ago.
However, after taking the spec-imen back to their laboratory,
they noticed something different. Its eyes were brown with a golden
ring in the center. The known wood lizards
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eyes were bright red. Wood lizards are covered in scales. The
research-ers also realized that their speci-mens scales were much
smoother. They suspected that it was a new species. Yet to make
sure, it would be necessary to find several more.
Alto Tambo woodlizard (Pablo Venegas)
Unfortunately, it had become dangerous for outsiders to visit
this part of Ecuador. So the research-ers did not return for five
years. When they did, they collected some more specimens. The
researchers were then able to confirm that it was a new species of
wood lizard. All wood lizards have scientific names. Each begins
with Enyalioi-des. This is their genus, or group-ing. In taxonomy a
genus is above a species but below a family. The researchers named
the new creature the Alto Tambo wood lizard after the village where
they originally found it. The lizards scientific name is
Enyalioides altotambo.
The researchers found the oth-er new species more recently. Last
year they were walking in the forest near the border between Peru
and Ecuador. They came across a group of wood lizards that looked
very dif-ferent. These ones had spiky scales and dark spots all
over their bodies. Another type was found with a thin-ner body. It
has a white throat and bright green spikes along its back.
Later, DNA tests showed that both lizards were new species. The
researchers named them the rough-
scaled wood lizard and the Roth-schilds wood lizard. Their
scientif-ic names are Enyalioides anisolepis and Enyalioides
sophiarothschil-dae. The Rothschilds wood lizard was named after
the person who helped the researchers with funds, or money.
After identifying three new spe-cies, the researchers suspect
that there are many more. These, they say, are now waiting to be
discov-ered in the forests of southern Ecua-dor and northern
Peru.
EINSTEIN RING
Scientists working at the ALMA telescope have recently produced
an image of a far away galaxy. The image does not look like a
normal distant galaxy. Instead, it appears as an almost complete
circle of light. This is known as an Einstein ring. These light
circles are formed by a phenomenon called gravitation-al
lensing.
ALMA is a radio telescope. It became fully operational two years
ago. Radio telescopes have to be much bigger than optical ones (or
those that we use to look at the night skies). This is because the
wave-lengths of visible light are much smaller than the wavelengths
of radio waves. Unlike an optical tele-scope a radio telescope has
a large antenna, or dish. The bigger the radio telescopes dish the
farther into space it can see. Radio tele-scopes with a number of
dishes, which are connected to each other, are called an array.
ALMA stands for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter
Array. The array has been built on a plateau. It is about 16,570
feet (5,050 meters) above sea level, in
Chiles Atacama Desert. This is one of the worlds driest places.
Almost every night is clear of clouds and it hardly ever rains.
There is very little moisture in the air, which can affect the
light. So this part of Chile is one of the best places in the world
to study the planets and stars.
The array is so high up that sci-entists working there have to
have an extra supply of oxygen. The base station, from where the
telescope is controlled, is 6,560 feet (2,000 meters) lower down.
It is one of the highest buildings in the world.
The powerful radio telescope is a joint project between Chile
and countries from North Amer-ica, Europe and Asia. Planning and
building ALMA took more than ten years. It cost $1.3 billion (860
million). ALMA has an array of 66 dishes, or antennas. Each is
about 40 feet (12 meters) across. Huge remote controlled
transporter vehicles move each of the dishes around. On the desert
plateau they can be as far apart as ten miles (16 kilometers).
Einstein ring or gravitational lensing (ALMA)
The circle of light is a galaxy called SDP.81. It was first
record-ed by a space telescope five years ago. The galaxy is about
12 billion
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April 16, 2015 Newsademic.com American English edition page
17
light years from the Earth. However, when viewed from the Earth
another galaxy is directly in front of it. This one is much closer
to the Earth. So the Earth and the two galaxies line up, or
align.
Albert Einstein (1879 1955) was a German-born scientist. He is
often described as the father of modern physics. Einsteins famous
general theory of relativity changed the way in which scientists
thought about gravity, space, light, and time. It says that mass
can warp, or bend, space, time and even light. (In later years this
was shown to be true.)
ALMA array, in Chile ALMA)
As Einstein predicted, when seen from the Earth, the mass of the
nearer galaxy bends the light of the farthest one. So instead of
seeing the distant galaxy as a white light, it appears around the
nearer galaxy as a circle. This is why these circles are known as
Einstein rings. As well as chang-ing its shape, gravitational
lensing magnifies the image of the faraway galaxy. This is like
giving a telescope a boost. Using the ALMA telescope, scientists
can now study SDP.81. Without the gravitational lensing, it would
be very difficult to see.
THE GREAT DYING
A team of researchers has been studying some rocks in the
Unit-ed Arab Emirates (UAE). These rocks were on the seabed about
252
million years ago. The rocks, the scientists say, show that the
sea had become very acidic at that time. The researchers work may
help to ex-plain what caused the worlds worst mass extinction.
During the worlds long history there have been at least five
mass extinctions, or extinction events. Perhaps the best known is
the extinc-tion of the dinosaurs. This happened about 66 million
years ago. This may have been caused by a large asteroid or comet
hitting the Earth. Another possibility is an enormous volcanic
eruption in what we now call India. This eruption lasted for over
500,000 years.
The worst extinction event hap-pened before the age of the
dino-saurs. Known as the Permian-Tri-assic mass extinction, it
happened 252 million years ago. This event marked the end of the
Permian and the beginning of the Triassic geo-logical periods.
Then, the world looked very different to what it does today. All
the continents were joined together in one large landmass.
Sci-entists call this land area Pangaea. Panthalassa was the super
ocean that surrounded it.
Trilobite fossil
The Permian-Triassic mass ex-tinction is also known as the Great
Dying. Around 96% of all life in the sea and about 70% of life on
the land died out. Even the in-sects disappeared. This is the
only
extinction event that affected in-sects. The tropics, or large
areas on each side of the Equator, were the worst affected. One
marine crea-ture that did not survive the Perm-ian-Triassic
extinction was the tri-lobite. These creatures were one of the
worlds most successful. Before the mass extinction, they had been
living in the oceans for 270 million years. Today, the organism
that is most like the trilobite is the horse-shoe crab.
Pangaea showing where todays continents were at the time of the
Great Dying
The researchers work in the UAE seems to confirm that the seas
became very acidic. Very high levels of carbon dioxide (CO
2) in
the air would have caused this to happen. This extra CO
2 could have
come from a very large volcanic eruption. Around the time of the
Permian-Triassic mass extinction there was a huge eruption in whats
now Russia. It happened at a place called the Siberian Traps. Traps
is the Swedish word for stairs. It is used to describe hills that
have a step-like formation.
The Siberian Traps are in north-ern Russia. They cover an area
of about 772 thousand square miles (two million square kilometers).
Its
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April 16, 2015 Newsademic.com American English edition page
18
known that the step-like hills were formed by a huge volcanic
eruption. This eruption is believed to have been the largest in the
Earths histo-ry. It probably lasted for many thou-sands of
years.
The huge amount of CO2 in the
atmosphere would have made the seas more acidic and the land and
air much warmer. Apart from places near the North and South Poles,
it became too hot for almost anything to survive.
After mass extinction events there is what is sometimes
described as a dead zone. This is the time it takes for certain
species to reappear. The dead zones following most mass extinctions
lasted for tens of thousands of years. However, the
Permian-Triassic event was differ-ent. Its dead zone seemed to
contin-ue for at least five million years.
EDUCATION FOR ALL
UNESCO is part of the United Nations (U.N.). Its name stands for
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organiza-tion.
UNESCOs headquarters are in Paris, the capital of France. The
organisation takes responsibility for the U.N.s education ideas,
policies and targets.
Fifteen years ago UNESCO or-ganized a large education meeting.
It was held in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. Over 1,000 officials
from 164 countries took part. A move-ment, or campaign, was set up
called Education for All (EFA). Six goals, or worldwide targets,
were agreed. These were to be reached by 2015. Some of the goals
were to provide free and compulsory prima-ry education for all, and
to increase adult literacy by 50%. This means
reducing the number of adults who are unable to read and
write.
On April 9, UNESCO released its EFA report. It covers the 15
years since the six goals were agreed. The report lists the
successes and fail-ures. It says that 50 million more children are
now going to school. Countries that have greatly im-proved
childrens education include Afghanistan, Nepal, Sierra Leone,
Rwanda, Tanzania, and India. In Nepal, all children now have a
pri-mary education. This also means that many more girls are now
at-tending school in this country.
Afghanistan has done well. The country has had many problems
over the last 15 years. Yet the number of girls going to junior
school has increased from 4% to nearly 90%. India is another
country where near-ly all younger children now attend school. It is
also the only country in Asia where the number of boys and girls in
senior school is equal.
Cuba, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and several European countries
man-aged to reach all their education goals. The report says that
about half of the 164 countries now ed-ucate all their younger
children.
Today, 58 million children in the world do not go to school.
Around 100 million fail to complete their primary education.
Countries such as Nigeria, Pakistan, Yemen, Niger, Chad, and
Ethiopia did the worst. All are a long way from meeting the targets
for young children.
The plan 15 years ago was to halve the number of adults who were
illiterate. This has not hap-pened. In 2000 about 18% of adults all
around the world were unable to read and write. This figure is now
14%. There are 781 million illiterate adults. Two-thirds are
women.
The report states that at least four million more teachers are
needed. There are too few teachers in many countries. The countries
with the greatest need for extra teachers are in Africa.
UNESCO has organized another large education meeting. This is to
be held in Inchon, a city in South Korea, in May. At this meeting
new goals and targets will be set for the next 15 years. The report
says that countries and donor organisations will need to find an
additional $22 billion (15 billion) if all these new goals are to
be met.
Newsademic.com
Editor: Rebecca Watson
American Editor: Chris Tarn
Acknowledgements:
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April 16, 2015 Newsademic.com American English edition page
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ISSUE 247 GLOSSARY PUZZLE
INSTRUCTIONS: Complete the crossword. The answers are
highlighted in orange in the news stories. There are 25 words
highlighted and you need 20 of them to complete the crossword. Once
you have solved the crossword go to the word search on the next
page
1 2 3
4 5
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9 10
11 12
13 14
15
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ACROSS 2 Noun An area of high ground with a fairly level
surface 7 Noun Two or more things joining or mixing together,
or
happening at the same time 8 Verb Cover completely, or swallow
up 9 Verb To intentionally become involved in a difficult
situa-
tion to stop it from getting worse 13 Noun Plural Places to
which people are going 15 Noun Plural Substances produced by living
creatures that
cause a biochemical reaction 16 Adjective Describes something
that must be done;
theres no choice 17 Verb Kidnapped or taken away illegally 18
Verb Surrounded by military forces for a long time 19 Noun A
framework made to a design of strips of wood
or metal
DOWN 1 Adjective Unable to support life 3 Noun Plural People who
designs buildings 4 Noun Guarding a place or period of prayer,
especially
at night 5 Noun An unusual or remarkable event or occurrence 6
Verb Delayed or stopped something from happening 8 Noun The act of
deliberately preventing, or stopping,
someone from entering a place 10 Noun A shop, or store, that
sells medicines and health
care items 11 Verb React to someones action to harm or upset you
by
doing something to hurt them back 12 Noun Plural Outlines of
natural features such hills or
valleys 14 Noun Science of classification of living
organisms
according to their similarities
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April 16, 2015 Newsademic.com American English edition page
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ISSUE 247GLOSSARY PUZZLE CONTINUED
INSTRUCTIONS: Find 19 of the 20 crossword answers in the word
search. Words can go vertically, horizontally, diagonally and back
to front. After finding the 19 words write down the 20th (or
missing) word under the puzzle.
S N O I T A N I T S E D J O T R H N
T R Y K A W A Q E M K G K L Z J D O
C E U H V A O M T M T O U V B C Z N
E Z J O G E Y W U A E T A L P M M E
T W H O T Z X U E R U Q H I P H L M
I X T I N N R D E D W L N P E E F O
H L P E Y E O T T B H K T N X N A N
C G S N O X A C V V N S G C Q E K E
R B U N C L U Y P O D U L O Z V Y H
A A W W I C U E I I L U A V N R C P
C R G A P Y J T S F S H T D Z E A S
G R T D O E A R S I D F T E Y T M U
T E O Y L N U G O Q F B I G B N R Q
W N A I I P L N H R V S C I D I A X
R A G B T D T T C R X M E E S B H D
R I M E T E G R O D D F S S J L P N
V O D E T C U D B A N Q B E O E G X
C O M P U L S O R Y H A I B H P O Z
MISSING WORD ANSWER =
ISSUE 246 A
NSW
ERS
N O I T A T I N A S D E G B U F Q D
O O S Y E L U S I V E C J E G E A E
I D I Q L V Z C Y B Q N D V T K R T
T I K T B K P O R T R A Y E D F O A
A S B L A G D G E X A T H R I K T L
S T F W D N D C O I O S H A U S U U
N R F O R O I X O J Y I E G L E C M
E E R Z O V I T P M D S E E S X E U
D S U X F J J A S I P E H T P P S C
N S A U F G R H S E B R A D A Y O C
O S U R A T X T D U D T O T Z Z R A
C A N R I R U V A G E W H M V R P O
L O E A V R K S F S U O I C I L E D
L S L I B E P R O H L T T K L S L Z
Z L J A Y G Y Y F K C O O G K Q E A
P S N B N C A O R J Q M G R U C V N
M C M F J C A Y R I O B J A G Q V S
E L B A N I A T S U S I S K N P J O
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