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WHO Calls for Global Ban on Trans Fats
May 14, 2018
The World Health Organization is urging people around the world to remove trans fats from their diets, in the strongest possible way. Two very large nonprofits have joined the WHO in its launch of Replace, a program calling for elimination of trans fat from the global flood supply by 2023. The nonprofits are the Bloomberg Philanthropies and Resolve to Save Lives (an adjunct of the Gates Foundation). It is the first time that the WHO has made such a pronouncement in aid of curbing chronic disease, the organization said. The WHO said that about half a million people die prematurely each year from cardiovascular disease. Eating large amounts of trans fats has long been linked to such health problems.
Horse Found amid Ruins of Pompeii
May 14, 2018
Fresh excavations of the ruins of Pompeii have turned up an ancient racehorse. The Italian city was overwhelmed by lava and ash from Mount Vesuvius on August 24, A.D. 79. Archaeologists investigating grave robber tunnels found the large horse, lying on its left side, in a stables in the northern outskirts of the suburb Civita Giuliana, beyond the Roman walls. The stables were part of the Casa dei Casti Amanti, a villa owned by a rich family. Also found near the horse were a harness made of iron and bronze. Archaeologists have suggested that the horse might have been used for racing, not doing manual work. The archaeologists have used liquid plaster to create the first-ever casting of a complete horse from Pompeii.
No Human Bankers in This Chinese Branch
May 14, 2018
"Little Dragon" can help you with that, customers are told, at China's first human-free bank branch. "Little Dragon" is the English equivalent of Xiao Long, a robot employee of Shanghai's Jiujiang Road branch of the China Construction Bank. She's not the only robot on the premises, however. Another machine awaits to further assist customers. Customers at the bank start with "Little Dragon," entering a PIN pad that she she is holding, in order to access bank information. Customers can also have conversations with customers, answering basic questions; if she is asked, she will direct customers further inside the bank, to a virtual reality room, in which customers can talk to a person, via a video link. In between are automated teller machines that can not only dispense cash but also open accounts, transfer money, and even perform foreign currency exchange.
Egypt: No Hidden Chambers in King Tut's Tomb
May 6, 2018
No one is hiding in King Tut's tomb. That's the conclusion of Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities after a series of intense radar scans of the burial chamber of the famed "Boy King," Tutankhamen, showed no hidden walls, as been the highly publicized claim of a British Egyptologist in 2015.
Sunny Morocco Steaming Ahead in Solar Department
May 4, 2018
Morocco is one of a growing number of nations building a growing number of solar farms. The first farm, near the city Ouarzazate, began operating in 2016, generating enough electricity to power 650,000 homes. The country's target is for that plant to power 1 million homes by 2020. The massive plant is already the size of Paris and has been designed to minimize damage from desert winds. Ouarzazate is a town on the western edge of the Sahara Desert, in the shadow of the Atlas Mountains. Morocco has a long history of importing nearly all of its energy needs. The solar plant, named Noor (Arabic for "light"), harnesses one of the desert country's most prevalent assets: sunlight. The country says that the Sun shines in the Moroccan desert for up to 3,600 hours a year. The first two phases of the plant, Noor 1 and Noor 2, now generate 160 megawatts of solar energy; already, the country has cut its carbon emissions by hundreds of thousands of tons a year, the government says.
Arizona Teachers Win Some Concessions, End Strike
May 4, 2018
It was back to school for students and teachers across the state of Arizona, as organizers of a statewide strike announced its end after getting some of what they wanted. The six-day walkout had been in support of a call for higher education funding, and the state legislature had supplied some of that, approving a nearly $400 million spending package that includes a 9-percent raise in teacher salaries for the fall and then a 5-percent raise for the two years following this one.
Focus on Students amid Arizona Teachers Strike
April 29, 2018
The Arizona teachers strike has no end date, so parents statewide are making child care arrangements in lieu of school. It is Arizona's first statewide strike. Teachers at first conducted a "walk-in," wearing Red for Ed T-shirts and buttons and waving similar signs at before-school protests, before getting on and teaching their students. The strike began on April 26, a Thursday, and continued the following day, a Friday. Many schools have already announced that they are closing their doors on Monday, as the strike continues. The teachers are rallying to call for more money for education and for their own salaries. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten will be in Phoenix to speak at a rally at the statehouse. Churches and community centers are among the public buildings being tapped to house children who would otherwise be in school. Across the state, day camps have sprung up as well. Schoolchildren usually each lunch at school, and so those looking after those not in school have gathered food from friends, family, and community organizations. Also collected have been donations for schools' hourly staff who are not salaried teachers and who would otherwise be at work.
Modern Techs Combine to Scan Ancient Vatican Documents
April 30, 2018
A combination of two kinds of modern technology could reveal many secrets hidden in the Vatican Secret Archives. The Secret Archives are filled with a very large number of handwritten documents going back more than 1,200 years. The space needed to store all of those documents exceeds 53 linear miles; some documents are stored in a two-story underground vault. Access to all but a tiny fraction of those is heavily restricted. Some of the documents have been scanned and made available online, but the vast majority have not. The main reason for this, authorities said, is that the technology has not been able to cope with, for lack of better phrasing, bad handwriting. Optical character recognition (OCR) software is the most common way in which documents are scanned for electronic use; but that software, as advanced as it is, struggles at times to make sense of written letters and spaces. And if the software doesn't quite know how to "translate" the letters of a word, the result is individual letters, often with spaces in between. Add to that the relatively recent practice of inserting spaces between words in handwritten documents, and the task of creating a reliable electronic representation of a document written by hand many hundreds of years ago is considered quite daunting. Now, however, the Vatican is onboard with a melding of two modern technologies, OCR and artificial intelligence itself. The Vatican has termed the project In Codice Ratio, and its goal is to create legible and understandable electronic versions of many documents that have not seen the light of day for many, many years.
Intuit Campus Cafeteria to Employ Delivery Robot
April 30, 2018
Starship's robots will be rolling out in a big way soon. The company is Starship Technologies, an autonomous delivery startup that began in 2014, the brainchild of Skype co-founders Janus Friis and Ahti Heinla. Hugging the ground and going no faster than 4 mph, the delivery robots are designed for suburban areas no more than 3 miles from point of origin. A system of proprietary maps, nine high-resolution cameras, and a 360-degree ultrasonic sensor array power the guidance system; LED lights advertise the presence of the bot on suburban sidewalks. The company has tested the robots in public places, on a limited basis, in 20 countries for the past few years. Now, Intuit, a Silicon Valley company, will employ a Starship robot to deliver meals from the company's staff cafeteria to a point elsewhere on the campus.
Titanic 1st Meal Menu Sells for $140,000
April 22, 2018
The first meal served aboard the Titanic took place nearly two weeks before the ocean liner sank. A menu from that meal has sold at auction for £100,000 ($140,000). It was April 2, 1912, the first day of sea trials. Officers and crew gathered for a meal in the main dining area before passengers arrived. Second Officer Charles Lightoller was at that meal, and he saved the menu, giving it to his wife just before the ship sailed on its maiden voyage, on April 10. Lightoller was the most senior crew member to survive, after the ship struck an iceberg and sank early on the morning of April 15.
Nationwide Walkouts Remember Columbine School Shootings
April 20, 2018
Students across the U.S. walked out of class on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings. The walkout was part of a nationwide movement that began in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., shootings in February and gained widespread attendance and attention with a large number of events on March 14 and on March 24. The latest protest involved students from more than 2,600 schools and institutions, at least one in every state and some in other countries, organizers said. Columbine students participated as they have every year since the 1999 shootings: by doing community service. The school has not had classes on that day since then.
Marcus Aurelius Bust Found in Egyptian Temple Ruins
April 23, 2018
Egyptian archaeologists have found a bust of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor known as much for his philosophical writings as for his conquests. The team were working to protect the Temple of Kom Ombo from groundwater when they found the bust. Similar work in 2017 uncovered a sandstone carving that contained the name and face of Philip Arrhidaeus, who succeeded Alexander the Great as leader of Macedon. Earlier digs have found more than 300 crocodile mummies; many of those are on display at the nearby Crocodile Museum. Marcus Aurelius was Emperor of Rome from A.D. 161 to A.D. 180. An adherent to the philosophy of Stoicism, he became famous for an untitled work that has come to be called Meditations.
Law School to Give Hamilton Honorary Degree
April 22, 2018
A New York law school will be handing out an honorary degree to the nation's founding Secretary of the Treasury. Albany Law School, in its graduation ceremonies on May 18, will bestow on Alexander Hamilton an honorary degree, giving it to Hamilton's fifth-great-grandson, Douglas Hamilton. Hamilton attended King's College (now Columbia University) in New York City but did not graduate. He did not attend law school and so did not obtain a law degree; rather, he studied on his own and passed the bar exam in 1783, a year before the country's first law school, Litchfield (Conn.) Law School, opened its doors.
Got 5 Minutes? Punch a Button and Read a Short Story
April 16, 2018
Short story kiosks are finding a market in the U.S., three years after their launch in France. The company is Short Edition, and the idea is that a person can punch a button on a dispenser and receive a printout of a short story, designed to be read in one, three, or five minutes. The user determines the length-by-duration and the genre of story by pushing the relevant buttons. The user pays nothing, and the paper is eco-friendly.
Kentucky Lawmakers Override Governor's Funding Vetoes
April 15, 2018
In a win for the state's teachers, the Kentucky legislature has voted to override the state's governor's vetoes of bills sent to him for approval. Gov. Matt Bevin had vetoed a state budget and tax increase that were both approved by both the Kentucky House of Representatives and Senate, saying that they lacked fiscal responsibility, while also signing a bill that amounted to cutting pensions for first-time teachers. In response to the announcement of the pension reform bill, Kentucky teachers by the thousands descended on the statehouse in Frankfurt to air their concerns. The crowds grew larger after the governor's vetoes. The legislature convened for the last two days of its term in the shadow of the thousands-strong protest and voted to override the governor's veto.
Amateur-found Hoard Linked to King Bluetooth
April 16, 2018
A chance discovery by a pair of amateur archaeologists could be associated with Denmark's famed King Harald Bluetooth, experts said. The pair, 13-year-old Luca Malaschnitschenko and René Schön, were using metal detectors to scan a field on the Baltic Sea island of Rügen in January when they found a silver coin. Taking their find to experts resulted in a team dig of 4,300 square feet, and among the trove found buried were brooches, coins, braided necklaces, rings, and a Thor's hammer. The field is in Schaprode, a German municipality in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, which is also known as Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. Not far from Schaprode is the island of Hiddensee, site of a 19th-Century discovery of a hoard of gold from the reign of Bluetooth, whose real name was Harald Gormsson, also known as Harald Blåtand.
Public Viewing for 1906 SF Quake Found Footage
April 15, 2018
Newly discovered footage of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake has seen the light of day in a public forum for the first time. For three successive nights, more than 120 people crammed into a small theater at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, Calif., to watch nine minutes of silent footage of one of America's most devastating natural disasters. The film, taken by the well-known Miles Brothers just after the April 1906 quake and fire, shows up-close the devastated city. The filmmakers had completed another film, A trip down Market Street before the fire, just four days before the devastation occurred. For the first time, the public was able to see the before-and-after moving images that until now had been available only in still photographs.
Target Set for Cuts in Shipping Emissions
April 15, 2018
The world's shipping industry has committed to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions, for the first time ever. The target is a 50-percent reduction by 2050 of levels observed in 2008. Officials for the 173-member International Maritime Organization (IMO) made the announcement after weeklong talks in London. According to the IMO, shipping across the globe generates emissions that would rank it as the world's sixth-largest emitter if placed in a list of nations. A new study found that if shipping emissions were not reduced, they would amount to 15 percent of the total amount by 2050.
Dachshund Museum Opens in Germany
April 11, 2018
The German region of Bavaria now has a museum dedicated to all things dachshund. The Dackelmuseum (German for "Dachshund Museum") opened in Passau on April 2. Customers shopping in the store opened by florists Josef Küblbeck and Oliver Storz can find more than 4,500 figurines, photos, stamps, and other items showing or inspired by the tiny sausage-shaped dog.
Low-flying Drones Reveal New Nazca Lines
April 8, 2018
Archaeologists have found a whole new network of geoglyphs in the spirit and location of Peru's famed Nazca Lines. The Nazca culture flourished in what is now Peru in the first half of the first millenium A.D., long before the famed Inca held sway there. Populating the area before the Nazca were other cultures, including the Paracas and Topará; and it is people from those two cultures that today's archaeologists think carved out some of the newly discovered geoglyphs, which are all these years later too faint to be seen by the naked eye. Scans by low-flying drones revealed the newfound lines, as well as some previously undiscovered Nazca Lines.
Kentucky, Oklahoma Teachers Converge on Statehouses
April 2, 2018
Tens of thousands of teachers in Kentucky and Oklahoma have marched to their respective state capitols in order to protest their pay and other benefits. The Oklahoma protesters, about 30,000 from hundreds of schools across the state, converged on the state capitol in Oklahoma City in order to call for increases in funding for programs and supplies that the teachers say have been removed in recent years. Nearly half of the schools across the state closed on Monday as a result; further school closures were expected for Tuesday. In Kentucky, gatherings took place outside Frankfort's headquarters of the Kentucky Education Association and at the statehouse. The Kentucky Legislature had recently passed a series of bills as a way to target a projected $41 billion shortfall during the next 30 years. The pension reform, which included cutting pensions for first-time and retiring teachers, was part of another bill allocating funding for not education but sewage.
Sisi Overwhelmingly Re-elected as Egyptian President
April 2, 2018
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has won re-election, taking 97 percent of the vote. In the weeks leading up to the presidential election, leaders of the country's opposition parties called for a boycott, in large part to protest the treatment of a series of opposition candidates, all of whom dropped out, willingly or otherwise.
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Social Studies for Kids
copyright 2002–2018
David White
