Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
After 162 games, baseball’s regular season came to an exciting close.
This year, some new changes made the year even more exciting than usual.
Major League Baseball (MLB) changed the way they choose who gets to be in the playoffs this year.
And with that new system, some teams were battling for a playoff position right down to their last game.
The 2012 Toronto International Film Festival ended last Sunday.
For 10 days, movies from more than 60 countries were shown around the city.
Thirty-eight of them were premieres, or films that were shown in Toronto for the first time. And all the big players–famous actors, directors and producers–came out to see them, and to be seen.
A film festival is an event about movies: watching movies, making movies and acting in movies. And of course, it’s about the business of movies. Many big movie deals are made during TIFF. Storytellers meet writers. Writers meet producers. Producers meet directors. Directors meet actors. And later–often years later–a movie is made
Some amazing kids have been been in the news recently. Here are two who have made big achievements in the sports world.
Lydia Ko recently won the Canadian Women’s Open golf tournament. It’s a tournament for female golfers–adult golfers. Ko, however, is just 15 years old.
Ko lives in Auckland, New Zealand (where she has lived since she moved from South Korea when she was six years old). Last month she travelled to British Columbia, where she faced professional golfers at the Canadian Women’s Open.
Thank goodness for Costa Rica’s strict building codes.
They ensure that its buildings are extremely sturdy and well built. That helps account for the relatively small amount of damage the Central American country suffered after a powerful 7.6-magnitude earthquake last Wednesday.
The earthquake took place about 140 kms west of the country’s capital, San Jose.
In 1991, another 7.6-magnitude earthquake shook the country but it caused a lot of damage. This time, Costa Rica was saved by its new and updated building standards.
“Mollie’s” is a chain of candy stores in England.
They sell British and American candy, as well as ice cream.
There are three stores in the chain, located in the British towns of Welshpool, Newtown and Shrewsbury.
But perhaps the most interesting thing about Mollie’s candy stores is the owner—Mollie Price.
You see, she’s six years old.
Price started the business because she liked those “pick and mix” (bulk food) stores, as her mother told Britain’s Mail Online news website.
That’s how most of the candy in Mollie’s stores is sold.
Her mother said Price noticed there was an opportunity for a bulk candy store, and “Mollie’s” was born.
Put your pointer fingers and thumbs together so they form a rectangle.
Now go “click!”
You just took a picture.
Can you imagine it? That’s what it will be like to take a picture with the Ubi-Camera, now being developed by a group of researchers at the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences, a university in Japan.
The Ubi-Camera is a tiny rectangular box that fits over your thumb.
For the viewfinder (the thing you would normally look through on a camera to see what you want to take a picture of) you simply form a rectangle with your fingers and thumbs.
To take a picture, you press down on the box. Click! You’ve taken a photo—without a “camera.”
Most people know that plants react to light.
For instance, if a houseplant is near a window it will start to grow towards the light.
But what about sound?
New research shows that plants not only react to sound, but even produce sounds themselves.
Dr. Monica Gagliano is a researcher at The University of Western Australia. One day she was working in her herb garden and she started to wonder if plants were sensitive to sounds. Since she’s a scientist, she decided to find out.
She and some other researchers discovered something amazing. They found out that the roots of corn seedlings (very young corn plants) make clicking sounds.
Have you ever wondered what you’d look like if you were a superhero? An online store called Firebox.com lets you create a customized superhero—with your face on it.
For about $125, Firebox will create a superhero figurine that looks like you. At least, the head does.
You email Firebox pictures of your face from the front and the side, and the company creates a three-dimensional head that fits onto a superhero figurine body.
It’s hot outside. But just how hot? It’s “heat-wave” hot.
That’s according to Environment Canada, the official source for weather information in Canada, particularly for severe weather watches and warnings.
A heat wave is when the temperature outside reaches 32-degrees Celsius or higher for three or more days in a row.
Southern Ontario and Quebec are experiencing temperatures in the mid-30s. With the high humidity the provinces are also experiencing, the temperature outside feels more like 42 degrees.
Theatre-goers in Stratford, Ont. are used to seeing buskers.
(In this case, a busker is someone who performs music on a street corner for money that people throw into their hat or guitar case.)
But they were surprised and thrilled when they came out of the theatre last Saturday and saw that the busker on the steps was pop superstar Justin Bieber.
Bieber grew up in Stratford, and some members of his family still live there. However, he’s usually out of the country on tour or recording.
He was in town for the Much Music Video Awards.
Busking on the steps of the Avon Theatre is nothing new to Bieber. In the early days, before he became an international pop icon, he often used to busk there.
However, this time it was a bit different. For one thing, although he had his guitar case open in front of him he wasn’t collecting any money for his performance. (According to an estimate by Forbes magazine, Bieber earned $55-million last year.)
