What do Drunks Do?

What do Drunks Do?

By Max

After I watched a story about our country’s excellent golfer, Lu Wenxiong(呂文雄) in the news report, I was really shocked! It tells about he went out of his apartment to buy some snacks, and when he saw some drunks fighting, he wanted them to stop fighting. But the drunks hit and punched him to death. I wondered why drunks don’t do some good things to us, and just do some very bad things.

Drunks only do things that break our community, like drunk driving, and killing people. I even think of why some people like to produce wine, tobacco and some drugs? And why people open so many beetle nut stores? I really wish one day there are no more drunks in our country, even in the whole world!

Just like all the drunks, gangs also do things like them. They fight with people, drive motorcycles fast, and kill the people who see them fight. So they are really bad, just what I said.

The Case of the Missing Bees

The Case of the Missing Bees

Scientists say they have found an answer to the mystery of the disappearing honeybees

By Brenda Iasevoli

Where have all the honeybees gone? Over the past few years, millions of the helpful insects have disappeared. They fly away from their colonies in search of pollen and nectar and never return. Finally, scientists have solved part of the mystery. The two suspects in the disappearance are a fungus and a virus. (A fungus is an organism that feeds on matter; some fungi cause infection. A virus is a germ.) Bees infected with either the fungus or the virus separately could become sick, but they would probably survive. Bees infected with the fungus and the virus, however, would most certainly die, the scientists discovered.

"We found that the virus and the fungus together kill bees faster than anything that would happen alone," Colin Henderson told TFK. He is a member of the research team at the University of Montana that, together with Army scientists, made the discoveries.

In the past few years, bee populations in the U.S. have dropped 20% to 40%. The disappearance of entire beehives is called colony collapse disorder (CCD). Earlier studies focused on changes in weather and pesticides as possible causes of CCD. Pesticides are chemicals that are sprayed on crops to keep pests away.

Busy Bees

Why is CCD a growing concern? Honeybees do important jobs. They sip a sweet nectar from flowers and use it to make honey. They also pollinate flowering plants by carrying tiny grains of pollen from one part of a flower to another. The result: plants grow seeds and fruit. Bees pollinate crops that we eat every day including apples, almonds, broccoli, cucumbers and cantaloupe.

Each spring, beekeepers transport billions of honeybees around the country. They sell their pollination service to farmers. If there weren't enough bees to do the job, crops could suffer. About one-third of the food grown in the United States requires a honeybee to produce the seed or the fruit. There is no technology that can do the delicate work of bees. "In some seasons, there have been shortages of bees to pollinate all of the almond and citrus orchards," Henderson says.

Case Closed?

The discovery doesn't mean that bees are home free. Scientists are still doing research to discover how, exactly, the fungus and virus combine to kill the bees. For now, scientists advise beekeepers to treat the fungus, which is easier to cure than the virus, with a fungicide. This way, beekeepers can keep one half of the problem away and their colonies will be less vulnerable to attack.

"I hope no one goes away with the idea that we've actually solved the problem," Jeffrey Pettis of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "We still have a great deal of research to do to resolve why bees are dying in the U.S. and elsewhere."

Max- Millions of bees are missing in the past few years. Bees are very important for our lives, even they sting us, because they pollinate the flowers, and they make honey, too. Less and less bees can cause a big problem, and it gets worse and worse after bees have gone. Scientists finally found the problem that what causes bees disappear. Bees die of fungus and viruses, because these two kinds of germs are very dangerous. Bees can survive with just one kind of germ, but since millions of bees are gone, I think those bees were being infected by both of these germs. We could not lose bees, because they are important to us, and can affect our lives. Without them, we can lose some kinds of foods that we could eat now, especially honey. And without bees, some people can be fired without feeding bees. But the bee problem is solved halfway, by treating the fungus with fungicide. This way can decrease half of been attacked colonies. And since fungus can be treated, that means the bees can have a bigger chance surviving. So we must count the bee population to make sure the bee problem is solved, and we can keep buying honey to eat.

Found: An Earthlike Planet, at Last

Found: An Earthlike Planet, at Last

Gliese 581g is smack in the middle of the habitable zone

By Michael D. Lemonick for TIME

The star known as Gliese 581 is utterly unremarkable in almost every way you can imagine. It's a red dwarf, the most common type of star in our galaxy, the Milky Way. At 20 light years away, it is relatively nearby. (A light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles. And, a trillion is a million million!) But there are 116 stars that are closer than Gliese 581. You can't even see Gliese 581 without a telescope. It's no wonder that the star's name lacks even a whiff of mystery. But Gliese 581 does have one distinction. On September 29, a team of astronomers announced that they had found two more planets circling the star, bringing the total to six. And one of the planets, which was given the name Gliese 581g, may be of truly historic significance. Gliese 581g is in the "Goldilocks" zone. It is far enough away from its home star that temperatures are not too hot, but close enough that they're not too cold either, and thus just right for the possibility of life. Gliese 581g is a lot like Earth.

Do Other Earths Exist?

Gliese 581g probably has a solid surface just like Earth. Much more important, it sits smack in the middle of the Goldilocks zone. It orbits at just the right distance from the star to let water remain liquid rather than freezing solid or boiling away. As far as we know, that's a minimum requirement for the presence of life.

For thousands of years, scientists have wondered whether other Earths existed out in the universe. And since the first, very un-Earthlike planet outside our solar system was discovered in 1995, astronomers have been inching closer to answering that question. Now they have evidently succeeded. But to be clear, there's no way at this point to determine whether there is life on the new planet.

"We're pretty excited about it," admits Steve Vogt of the University of California at Santa Cruz, a member of the team that found the planet. "This is right next door to us. That's the big result."

A Remarkable Achievement

Lost in the excitement over possible life on the new world is what a remarkable achievement its mere discovery was. Detecting a planet this small is monstrously hard. It takes sensitive instruments and careful observation. It would have been impossible to detect a planet this small when Vogt and co-discoverer Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington first got into the planet-hunting game in the early 1990s. The instruments simply were not sensitive enough. Since then, says Vogt, he has been working hard "to improve the instruments." And, he says, Butler has been working just as hard to do the observations.

There is no proof that there is water on Gliese 581g. "Those are things we just have to speculate about," says Vogt. But he goes on to point out that there's water pretty much everywhere else you look. "There's water on Earth," he says, "and on the moon, and Mars, and on Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, and in interstellar space."

It's not hard to imagine, in other words, that Gliese 581g might have plenty of water as well. "It could have quite a good ocean," Vogt says. Maybe there's no life in that ocean. But unlike any planet found until now, there's nothing to rule out the idea that it could be full of life.

Max- I think finding another Earth is good for us. The planet must have the same things than Earth. Like these six planets, the have the same kind of things, like they have water, but not letting it freeze or evaporate, and it is solid, not other gas planets like Saturn and Uranus, and the temperature in that planet is not too cold or not too hot. Many people would think this is good, because one day they would demolish the Earth, and go to other planets so that they would live. But I think we must protect the Earth, and demolish the Earth even when new Earth-like planets are found. This planet hunting game started 20 years ago, and I think the planets they found first are just totally different from Earth. Some years later, scientist found some planets that were partly similar from Earth, but we can’t live on those planets, either. Some scientists prefer we can stay on Mars, because it is the same weather, but a day in Mars is just a bit longer than Earth. Now we found this kind of planet that we could stay, maybe we can find a planet very similar from Earth in the next few years.

A Miracle At The Mine

A Miracle at the Mine

Rescue teams bring trapped miners to freedom in Chile

By Andrea Delbanco

Tears of relief and shouts of joy rang out last week at the San Jose mine in northern Chile as 33 miners were lifted to freedom, one by one. The men, ranging from 19 to 63 years old, have been buried alive since a cave in the copper and gold mine they were working collapsed on August 5. It is the longest time anyone has ever survived being trapped underground. Buried Alive

After the collapse, the men found an emergency shelter off one of the mine's tunnels. The temperature in the dark shelter was around 90蚌. For more than two weeks, the miners' water came from the radiator tanks on their work vehicles. They shared a supply of food that was meant to last for only 48 hours.

The miners were totally isolated until rescue teams made contact with the men on August 22. They sent a note to the surface explaining their situation. Rescuers drilled small holes to reach the cavern and sent down supply tubes containing food, water, clothes, medicine, fresh air and other supplies. They also received letters from their families, a television set and games.

A Complicated Rescue

Additional collapses slowed down rescue efforts. Finally, a tunnel was built that could fit a 13-foot rescue capsule, called the Pheonix. The escape hole measures 28 inches across, a tight fit for the twisting 20-minute, 2,041-foot ride. The first miner reached the surface just after midnight on Wednesday. The rescue mission was faster than expected, and all 33 men had been brought to safety by late the same day.

The miners were met by family members who were waiting at Camp Hope, a settlement of tents near the mine. Chile's president, Sebasti嫕 Pi鎑ra, cheered at the scene and hugged the miners. "We made a promise never to surrender, and we kept it," he said. After an immediate medical exam, the men were air-lifted to the nearest hospital for 48 hours of observation.

Max- This is really a miracle! 33 miners are stuck in the gold mine for 69 days, and no one died in the mine. The 33 miners didn’t come out of the mine since August 5th because it collapsed. There was no sign of them for the next two weeks. Then finally, they got contact with the rescue team, and the rescue teams gave the food, water, fresh air and many more supplies (I was very jealous of the TV and games which they gave it to the miners!). Some weeks later, the rescue teams use some thing kind of a capsule to bring them to safety. I think they save people very fast, though it still took about 20 hours to save all 33 miners. No one expects that they would survive for about 2 months in that hot cave, because it may be impossible to save all the miners. After all the miners are saved, they went to the hospital to observe. The miners got lots of money, and they also found their family members. Some miners’ wives are so angry because they fall in love in another person. But still, this thing is a miracle, and they are happy.

Hey! Who's Driving This Thing?

Hey! Who's Driving This Thing?

Google, the Internet search and mapping company, has developed a car that can steer without a driver

By Jonathan Rosenbloom

Sometimes reality is stranger than science fiction: Google is road-testing cars that steer, stop and start without a human driver. The goal is to "help prevent traffic accidents, free up people's time and reduce carbon emissions," says Sebastian Thrun. He is the project leader for the driverless car, or Carbot.

 By developing the car and the software that drives it, Google wants to change how people get from place to place. Eric Schmidt, one of the company's top officials, said, "Your car should drive itself. It just makes sense."

The test cars, which are tricked-out Toyota Priuses, always have a person behind the wheel to make sure the software that steers the car is working. And if anything should go wrong, the human can immediately start driving.

Look! No Hands!

So far, the driverless autos have gone about 140,000 miles on California roads and highways without people taking over the driving very much. Seven test cars have gone a total of 1,000 miles without a human touching the controls at all. Many of the roads on which the cars have traveled successfully have been very busy or full of curves that challenge human drivers. The autos' software makes it possible to know speed limits, traffic patterns and road maps. The vehicles use radar, lasers and video cameras to find other cars and avoid people crossing streets.

There has only been one accident, during the testing. And in that case, the Carbot was hit from behind by a human driver when Google's car was stopped at a red light. Engineers say the driverless cars are safer than autos with people behind the wheel because the computers react more quickly than humans.

More Time for Relaxing

What would people do if they didn't have to pay attention to the road while driving? Google may hope that they'll surf the web while riding from place to place, notes Rob Enderle, who studies businesses and how they operate.

The Carbot is still in very early testing stages. Experts agree that it will be years before you'll be able to buy one. But it's likely that one day you will be sitting in the driver's seat of a driverless car. And instead of keeping your eyes peeled on the road, you could be checking your digital reader for your favorite book, texting your friends or just enjoying the passing scenery. When the auto was first invented it was called a "horseless carriage." Now it seems it's time for the "driverless carriage" to be part of our lives.

Max- Cars are better and better on time. Not only they change in shape, they change in some other things too. Like cars in the past use electricity, but they are really bad, they run as the speed as our bicycles, and it makes a lot of noise. But at the past, a man called Ford was really a good car designer and maker. Now, we use gasoline to let our cars move. They move fast, and the cars have lots of uses. Like cool cars, they run very fast and can reach to 200 miles per hour! And some cars have glass that is very hard to break it. Most of the people drive ordinary cars to let them travel faster. Future technology lets some cars drive without anyone driving it! I know this kind of car uses radar or something to make them drive it. Even it only uses that; it can drive a long distance, more than 1000 kilometers. I think car technology can be better in the future, like flying cars, or automatic cars, and other cool cars, and I wish they would have a kind of car that can reach to 500 miles per hour.

Sweet Relief!

Sweet Relief!

Southern California residents welcome the end of a record-breaking heat wave

By Andrea Delbanco

A 90-degree day at the very end of September is hardly something to celebrate. But for residents of southern California, it's a real relief. Today's relatively cool temperature marks the end of a record-setting heat wave and signals that the high-pressure weather system that sparked it is starting to ease.

Too Hot to Measure

The temperature reached a record-breaking 113 degrees in Los Angeles on Monday. After that, the official thermometer stopped working. "It just kind of quit functioning," said National Weather Service forecaster Stuart Seto. "But the temperature had already peaked. . . We doubt that it went over 113."

Los Angeles began keeping weather records in 1877. The city's previous high temperature of 112 degrees was set on June 26, 1990.

Things were cooling down a bit by Tuesday, when the temperature reached 99 degrees. That's seven degrees below record-breaking, but still 17 degrees above normal. Temperatures are expected to top out around 90 degrees on Wednesday.

Pedestrians used umbrellas to block the sun. Commuters broke into a sweat even in the early morning—and just standing still. Schools cut back or cancelled outdoor activities. Tourists visiting Los Angeles were caught unprepared. "We had to buy new clothes," said Jenni Kinsey, visiting from Cardiff, Wales. "We thought it was going to be normal hot, but this is hotter than our country," said Dilia Rosada, visiting from the Dominican Republic.

Power Problems

On Monday, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power reported its highest-ever demand for electricity. The demand caused transformers to overload and blowout. "Because we've had such hot nights, people are still running their air conditioners," says Vanessa McGrady, who works for Southern California Edison, a power company. "So the equipment really doesn't get a break."

On Tuesday morning, the heat wave had left more than 27,000 customers without power, and much-needed air conditioning. Crews worked round-the-clock to replace the broken equipment.

Max-The world is really getting hotter and hotter right now, even in October, our country was still about 30 degrees Celsius, and it’s really hot. Also a lot of heat waves happen in many countries, too. The heat wave in Beijing was over 40 degrees, and you can fry an egg on the road because it’s almost 70 degrees! Even animals in the zoo eat icy things to let their bodies cold. The temperatures in some countries of Europe are over 45 degrees Celsius, and the temperatures in some African countries are even up to 50 degrees! I think heat waves are very dangerous and deadly. So people just like to stay indoors, and open their air conditioners. But the most dangerous thing is that heat waves last a few days to many weeks, and also make electricity stops and even no water. The crazy thing on heat waves in California that even the thermometer stopped working after it reaches 113 degrees Fahrenheit. So this heat wave can be too hot for California, and the weather can be too strange for the citizens.

Fred Gets a Movie!

Fred Gets a Movie!

TFK chats with Lucas Cruikshank, creator of Internet sensation Fred

Millions of people have watched Internet sensation Fred Figglehorn on YouTube. The fictional, fast-talking 6-year-old has video blogged about going to the dentist, getting a haircut and even about microwaving dinner for his crush, Judy. Now, fans can watch Fred in his very own original TV movie, premiering September 18 on Nickelodeon.

Fred: The Movie follows the kindergartner as he goes on a wacky journey to find Judy after she moves away. Nebraska native Lucas Cruikshank, 17, plays Fred. Lucas created the quirky character about four years ago, and introduced Fred to Web audiences in 2008. The actor spoke to TFK about Fred's latest adventure.

TFK:

When did you first start making videos?

LUCAS:

I've been making videos for as long as I can remember. For my 13th birthday, I got a digital video camera, which meant I could put the videos I recorded onto the computer and edit them and add special effects. Then someone told me about YouTube. So I asked my parents for permission, and uploaded my videos. The rest just exploded. It's all been a really big surprise.

TFK:

How did the idea for Fred come about, and why did you decide to make him 6 years old?

LUCAS:

I'd seen some video blogs, and I wanted to joke about how self-absorbed video bloggers are. It's pretty much like they're posting their diaries for everyone to see on the Internet. I always thought that was funny and never understood it. Also, I thought it was funny how kids around the ages of 6 and 7 act. They're always throwing tantrums and so serious about everything and so innocent. That's why I made Fred 6 years old.

TFK:

Were you anything like Fred when you were younger?

LUCAS:

I hope I wasn't nearly as crazy or annoying as Fred. But I'm sure at times I was Fred-ish.

TFK:

What was your goal when you posted that first video?

LUCAS:

My goal was to entertain my friends. I would've been happy if I had made 10 people laugh. But to know that some of my videos have over 10 million views is crazy. When I posted the first video, I wasn't expecting any of that.

TFK:

What do you think makes Fred so popular?

LUCAS:

I think Fred is popular because it's content for teens that is made by a teen. Also, I think kids can relate to Fred not being able to fit in at school. It's fun watching someone who doesn't have very much make the most of his life, instead of moping around. The comedy helps the popularity, too. It's this really random humor.

TFK:

What's your favorite Fred episode so far?

LUCAS:

Probably "Fred Stalks Judy." That's always been my favorite. It's about Fred wanting to give a gift to Judy. He is always trying to win her over. In the episode, he goes over to her house and nobody is home. So, he invites himself over and is creeping around Judy's house.

TFK:

With your videos, you're in charge of everything. What was it like having someone else take the reins for the movie?

LUCAS:

It was definitely kind of scary at first to give other people the power to make decisions about Fred. Luckily, they still let me give creative input and were open to my ideas. The team really wanted to stay true to the character.

TFK:

What did you think about the casting for the movie?

LUCAS:

The casting was dead on. It's how I had always imagined the other characters to be. I got to help with casting, and I sat in on a few auditions. We picked some really great people. Jeannette McCurdy from iCarly plays Bertha, who is Fred's "frenemy." And Pixie Lott, this famous British pop singer, plays Judy.

TFK:

What was your favorite scene to shoot?

LUCAS:

My favorite is the pet store scene. It was really fun working with the two actors in the scene. Oscar Nu鎑z is from The Office and Jordan Black is a big [comedy] guy. And also we were around animals the whole day! That was fun.

TFK:

What can fans expect from Fred: The Movie?

LUCAS:

Fans can expect to see a lot more of Fred. The videos are limited to what you see Fred doing, as in any other video blog. Usually, you just see Fred when he's video blogging—you don't actually see him interact with other people in the real world. So it'll be fun for fans to see Fred out in the real world. They're going to see all of the other characters in the Fred story come to life.

Max- At first, I don’t really know Fred when I was younger, but after I saw a “The Annoying Orange” video clip (which is also funny and annoying), I decided to watch Fred too. After I saw a video about Fred, I think it was funny and it made me laugh a lot. After that, I always want to watch Fred in YouTube, and I want to see some more new Fred videos. After I searched Wikipedia, I finally know he maybe used a voice changer or it maybe can let him talk faster after the video was recorded (because his voice was too high). I very like some of those Fred videos, like “Fred in May Day”, which Fred got hit by a cup, and Judy wears his mom’s underwear on Fred’s head. I also like “Fred Goes Swimming”, which he played in his baby pool with his floaties and he peed in the pool and something else (that screaming and water splashing effects lets me laugh so much!). I never thought about Fred is making his own movie. After I saw the announcement video of Fred’s movie, I think this movie would be funny as I thought. I really going forward to watch Fred’s movie!