Lake on Mars
Scientists found signs of an ancient freshwater lake on Mars.
They say that the lake probably covered an area 31 miles long and 3 miles wide. Analysis of the sediment shows that the lake existed for at least tens of thousands of years. The lake existed at a time when other parts of Mars were dry.
The lake could have supported life in a form of rock-eating microbes, which can be found on Earth as well.
The Curiosity Rover is currently en route to a three-mile-high hill of rock. It is going to look for life there.
Difficult words: ancient (very old), freshwater (water with no salt), sediment (material at the bottom of the lake), Curiosity Rover (NASA’s robot which explores Mars) en route (traveling).
80,000 bats in Australia
Eighty thousand bats, who infested a park in an Australian city, were driven away by the sounds of horns, helicopters and gun blasts.
The bats’ feces were in people’s yards and on their cars. According to one person, it was sometimes so bad that he couldn’t even open his door. Many locals were pleased to see the animals go.
Others were worried more about the bats than people’s health. One woman even cried for the bats. She said that they had no chance to fly off and save their babies.
The council said it will continue the program for the next ten days to see whether the bats return.
Difficult words: infest (be somewhere in large numbers and cause damage), blast (loud noise), feces (the animals’ waste).
Brazilian football fans
There was a football match in Brazil. Both teams were Brazilian. Violence erupted when the scoreboard opened. The game had to be suspended for more than an hour.
Aggressive fans were fighting each other. Four of them were injured. The whole situation was worse because police were not allowed in the stadium at first.
The game eventually resumed. The home team won 1-0.
Difficult words: suspend (to officially stop something), eventually (in the end), resume (continue).
40 years inside a woman
An 82 year-old woman came to a hospital in Colombia. Her belly was in pain. Doctors thought that she was suffering from an infection, but it was something else. Something unexpected and rare.
The doctors X-rayed the woman’s belly. The X-ray images showed a fetus. This fetus, however, stopped developing into a baby and has been inside the woman for unbelievable 40 years. It was the case of lithopedion or stone baby.
One in every 11,000 pregnancies develops into lithopedion. The women often don’t know what’s happened because the baby’s stone body is not infectious to the mother’s body.
The elderly woman has had to undergo surgery to have the fetus taken out.
Difficult words: X-ray (take a picture of the body’s insides with a special machine), fetus (baby before it is born).
130 million years old animal
Colombian paleontologists recovered a fossilized skeleton of a plesiosaur on Saturday. The marine reptile lived 130 million years ago.
The eight-meter reptile was found in a central state of Colombia. Hundreds of millions of years ago, the state was under water. Plesiosaurus has also been found in Australia, North America, northern Europe and Antarctica.
Long-necked plesiosaurs swam in the Southern Ocean when the Earth was warmer than it is today.
Difficult words: paleontologist (person who studies fossils), fossilized (turned into a fossil/rock), marine reptile (cold-blooded animal which lives in the water).
Uncle of Kim Jong-un
Kim Jong-un’s uncle was probably the second most powerful man in North Korea. He was considered a mentor to his nephew, but also a threat.
North Korea says he has now been executed because he was plotting to overthrow Kim and become the most powerful man in North Korea. The news was revealed by the country’s news agency.
Kim Jong-un is an ambitious leader. Experts in North Korean history say that he wanted to strengthen his position. The western countries are watching the situation very closely, but North Korea is very secretive.
Difficult words: mentor (someone experienced who gives advice), execute (kill), plot (make a secret plan to harm a person or an organization).
President Obama and Raul Castro
President Obama went onstage to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela. Before giving the speech, he extended his hand to Cuba’s leader, Raul Castro.
Castro shook his hand and smiled back. The handshake is a gesture that reflects Nelson Mandela’s spirit of reconciliation.
It is very rare for US presidents to shake hands with Cuban leaders. Not counting this one, there has been only one handshake since the Cuban Revolution. It was at the United Nations in 2000. Bill Clinton and Raul’s brother, Fidel, shook hands.
Difficult words: pay tribute (to admire and agree with someone publicly), extend (move forward), reconciliation (becoming friends again).
Amazon has a new system
Drones are generally seen in a bad light. After all, they are used mainly for finding and killing people. Amazon, however, would like to use these machines for people’s good.
Amazon is testing a system to use drones to deliver packages to its customers. You could simply order something online, pay for it and wait in your garden for the little aircraft.
The drones are navigated by GPS and are expected to carry packages which do not weigh more than five pounds (2.3 kilograms). No matter how great all this sounds, we will have to wait four to five years for this system to be launched.
Difficult words: drone (aircraft without the pilot), bad light (people do not like something), launch (start).
Animals and Christmas
Animals and humans definitely have something in common, even such things as enjoying Christmas.
Animals at a zoo in Chile received some Christmas presents this year. The curious animals opened the boxes and looked inside. It was a very exciting thing for them to do, although some of them were more interested in the boxes and wrapping paper than in the gifts themselves.
Visitors and animals enjoyed this alike. The trees were decorated by edible baubles, so they didn’t last particularly long.
When the animals had eaten all their presents, there was nothing better to do than lay back and relax.
Difficult words: edible (can be eaten), bauble (decoration), particularly (very).
Hand on a foot
A twenty-five-year-old Chinese man lost his right hand in a machinery accident at the factory where he works. He went to hospital seven hours later with his missing hand.
Doctors couldn’t reattach his hand to his arm right away. The tissue would have died. Instead, they decided to transplant the hand somewhere else. They grafted it onto the man’s ankle.
Thirty-five days later, doctors removed the hand from his ankle and put it back where it should be. The man said that his hand felt numb. It will take months for the hand to function better. A lot of rehabilitation is needed.
Difficult words: tissue (the material forming animals and plants), graft (to attach something to something else where it can grow), numb (without feeling).