Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
There’s a terrific mystery in the library at the University of Western Ontario.
But it’s not a novel. It’s a trail of mysterious notes that have been left in the books in the university’s Weldon Library.
Mike Moffatt is an assistant professor of Business and Economics at Western.
On March 9 he took an economics book off the shelf and was surprised when an envelope fell out of its pages.
A husband and wife struck gold last month… in their backyard.
The man and woman were walking their dog on their property in California when the woman noticed a strange looking, rusty can in the ground.
They started digging, and eventually uncovered eight metal cans. The cans were full of gold coins–1,427 of them.
It turns out that the coins are very valuable. In fact, they’re worth more than $10-million.
Video game designer Dong Nguyen created a popular game App called Flappy Bird.
In 1867 when Canada was created, a towering Silver Maple tree standing in front of Alexander Muir’s house in Toronto gave him an idea.
He would write a poem and a song about the majestic tree, so common in Canada and so symbolic, to celebrate Canada’s confederation.
His song was called The Maple Leaf Forever and it has been the unofficial Canadian anthem to this day.
For many years, archaeologists have wondered why the people who built Stonehenge – a prehistoric monument in the south of England – used huge rocks that came from more than 300 kilometres away.
Now, a team of researchers believes the rocks may have been chosen because they produce musical sounds.
Sometimes, things on the Internet seem too good to be true.
That’s when people may start to challenge them, asking questions to figure out what’s real and what’s made up.
That is what happened when a video showing people riding a “hoverboard” recently went viral.
The video was posted on a website by a “company” called HUVr Tech.
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.
Imagine climbing all the way to the top of Mount Everest—the tallest mountain in the world—and when you get there, the summit is littered with garbage.
Over the years, exhausted climbers have left things like empty oxygen tanks, tent poles and food containers at the summit.
There are even parts from a helicopter that crashed on the mountain in 1974.
Experts say there are about 50 tons of garbage on the mountain.
Last Sunday was Hollywood’s big night.
The annual Academy Awards (known as the “Oscars”) recognize the best movies, actors and movie-makers of the year.
Four of the top awards are Best Picture, which went to the movie 12 Years a Slave; Best Actor (Matthew McConaughey, who starred in Dallas Buyers Club); Best Actress (Cate Blanchett, who starred in Blue Jasmine) and Best Director (Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity).
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.
