Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Obesity rates in young children in the U.S. have dropped by 43 per cent.
In this case, obesity means “very overweight,” which is not good for a person’s health.
Over the last 10 years, the number of young children in the U.S. who are obese has gone down by a lot.
In 2004, nearly 14 per cent of American children aged two to five were obese. In 2012 the number went down to 8.4 per cent.
A 12-year-old boy has invented a Braille printer that costs about $1,650 less than the ones that are available today.
Shubham Banerjee is in grade seven in Santa Clara, California.
He used a Lego Mindstorms kit and added five dollars’ worth of parts he bought at a hardware store to create what he calls a Braigo.
His Braigo costs about $349 to make.
The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics came to a close on Sunday.
During the closing ceremonies, all of the athletes walked into the arena together.
At the end of the closing ceremonies, a display is always put on by the country that will host the next winter Olympics. Pyeongchang, South Korea, will host the 2018 games.
Here are just a few of the interesting events that defined this year’s Winter Olympics for Canada and internationally…
There is a strip of vacant stores along Eglinton Ave. W. in Toronto.
The street in front of the stores is under construction.
The stores are vacant (there is no one using them) partly because of the construction, which makes it hard for people to visit the stores to shop. And if there are no shoppers, there’s no point in opening a store.
But Toronto businessman John Kernaghan looked at the vacant storefronts and saw possibilities.
Watching the best-of-the-best compete for gold at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics is inspirational.
But beyond the performance of the athletes, there have already been many other inspirational moments at these Olympics.
Russian cross-country skier Anton Gafarov fell and broke his ski during the Men’s Sprint Free Semifinals.
In true Olympic spirit he tried to keep going, knowing that although he no longer had any chance of winning, he needed to finish the race he had started.
However, his ski was broken in half.
He would end up limping across the finish line in front of the world, not to mention his fellow Russians who were cheering from the sidelines.
Sesame Street may be where the air is sweet, but these days it’s also where the food… isn’t.
The children’s television show has started a program to help get kids eating food that’s better for them.
The program is called, “Food for Thought: Eating Healthy on a Budget.”
About one in four children in the United States does not get enough nutritious food to eat, often because parents can’t afford it.
That’s about six million children, according to the Sesame Street website.
The people of Mexico drink more soft drinks than people in any other country in the world.
Last fall, the government of Mexico made a decision to increase the taxes on soft drinks with sugar.
They said that soft drinks help to create health problems like obesity and diabetes. That tax is starting now.
In the past, Mexico has done other things to reduce sugar and fat in schools, like removing unhealthy foods from vending machines.
But some people say this kind of tax to make people healthier doesn’t work.
In 2011 another country, Denmark, put a tax on fatty foods for the same reason: to improve people’s health. But they removed it a year later because it caused more problems than it solved.
A tiny bunny has created a lot of debate.
The bunny at the centre of the controversy is made of bronze—and it’s in Nelson Mandela’s ear.
Following the death of the famous world leader, officials in South Africa hired two sculptors to build a monument in his honour.
Sculptors Ruhan Janse van Vuuren and Andre Prinsloo created a majestic, nine-metre likeness of Mandela, with his arms open wide as if to embrace the world.
Eugenie “Genie” Bouchard from Montreal, Quebec, recently made tennis history for her country.
She made it to the semi-final round of a tournament called the Australian Open.
Bouchard is the 30th ranked female tennis player in the world.
On Monday she played against Ana Ivanovic, the 14th ranked female tennis player in the world.
Ivanovic had just recently beaten the world-number-one ranked female tennis player, Serena Williams. With that huge win, Ivanovic seemed poised to beat Bouchard.
However, Bouchard had other plans.
Many people use tablet computers, like the Apple iPad or the Samsung Galaxy.
The small, flat computers, which you operate by swiping their surface with your fingers, are very expensive. They can cost as much as $800.
But one company, Datawind, says they have a tablet that sells for just $40.
Datawind’s tablet is called Ubislate, and it is already widely used in India.
Datawind has just launched Ubislate (pronounced oo-bee-slate) in Canada and the U.S. There is a lot of interest as well as debate over whether it offers enough speed, screen clarity and features.
Ubislate can’t do everything the expensive tablets do, but Toronto Star technology reporter Raju Mudhar used the tablet for a few days and said that what it does, it does well.
