Readable, teachable news.
Saturday, December 21, 2024
A group of scientists in the United States has come one step closer to harnessing a source of energy that would be clean, safe and nearly unlimited.
The scientists, who work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, are trying to find a way to generate energy efficiently using a process called nuclear fusion.
The Great Lakes were almost completely frozen over by March 2, with 90.5 per cent of their total surface covered in ice.
The five connected lakes are located on the border between Canada and the United States, in northeastern North America.
Although some sections of the lakes freeze each winter, usually only about 50 per cent of the water is covered with ice.
In 2012-2013, only about 38 per cent of the lakes was frozen over, and just 13 per cent was covered with ice in the winter of 2011-2012.
Scientists have found the oldest known piece of our planet.
A blue zircon crystal, found on a sheep ranch in Australia, is about 4.4 billion years old.
The gem is about twice the width of a human hair.
Stephen Hawking is a physicist, an expert in the science called physics, and generally regarded as a genius for his work in helping us better understand the universe.
A student doctor recently saved the life of an unusual patient, in a very unusual way.
Ryan Jones, a medical student at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, was practicing diagnosing illnesses.
As part of his training, he and other student doctors had to diagnose an actor who was playing the part of an ill patient.
The actor would act out symptoms of an illness he pretended to have, and the medical student had to figure out what the illness was.
Of course, the actors didn’t really have any illness—they were just pretending.
Except, in the case of Jim Malloy, he really did have the illness and didn’t know it.
Many cities in North America experienced extreme weather during the 2013 holiday season.
On Dec. 22, Toronto was struck by an ice storm which caused trees to become covered with large amounts of ice.
Although it was often beautiful, it was also destructive.
Many of the trees couldn’t support the weight of the ice and branches came crashing down.
Some of the branches took out power lines, so hundreds of thousands of people in the city were without power for hours or days.
How much do you know about the news that happened in 2013?
Take our quiz and see how much you remember about these stories from the past year. The link beside each question will take you to the TKN article that will give you the answer.
1) First Nations, Inuit and Metis people came together to form a movement for peaceful protest. What did the group call itself?
2) Chris Hadfield is famous for _____________. (Note: There are many possible correct answers for this one — fill the blank with what you know about Hadfield.)
Comet ISON is about to put on a show.
Scientists around the world are watching as ISON streaks, ever-faster, towards the sun.
NASA has been studying ISON since December, when it was more than 800 million kilometres away.
Experts are calling Comet ISON as “the comet of the century.”
What is a comet? Here’s how astrophysicist Julie Abraham describes a comet: “It’s basically a big ball of dirty ice in orbit around the sun that gradually melts or burns up, spewing out debris and water in a plume blown out behind it.”
Scientists have discovered 60 species of previously unknown plants and animals living in a remote rainforest in southeastern Suriname.
Suriname is a small country on the northeastern coast of South America, just north of Brazil.
It is located in a geographic area called the Guiana Shield, which contains more than one-quarter of the world’s rainforest.
An expedition of 16 field biologists spent three weeks in Suriname in 2012, exploring the remote, mountainous rainforest region.
Thirty indigenous men helped transport their food and equipment by boat and guided team through the forest.
This week, a “robotic explorer” left Earth on its way to Mars.
It should get there next September. Mars is more than 700 million kilometres away.
The explorer is going to Mars to try to solve some of the planet’s mysteries.
For instance, why is Mars now a cold, dry planet when it started out warm and wet?
The Associated Press reports that “the early Martian atmosphere was thick enough to hold water and possibly support microbial life.”
Scientists at NASA want to know what happened to change that.
