Small boy on a skateboard
An incredible video emerged. It shows a two-year-old skateboarder in action.
The little boy is from Australia and he could be the most amazing skateboarder ever. He comes from a family of skateboard enthusiasts, and he has been practising since he was just six months old. The age when most of us can’t even walk yet!
In the video, he skates down the streets and hops over curbs on his board.
Difficult words: incredible (unbelievable), enthusiast (person who is very interested in something), curb (edge of the pavement).
Giraffe is born
A rare Rothschild giraffe was born in Devon, England around a week ago. The moment she arrived in the world was caught on camera.
Giraffes give birth standing up, so the newborns experience quite a fall. It might seem like a rude start to life, but the fall helps to break the umbilical cord. The mother then licks the baby, which stimulates blood flow.
The little giraffe started running around just a few hours later. She is six feet tall now (1.8 metres). Her mother came to the UK from Slovakia and her father from Denmark. The Rothschild giraffe is endangered. Only a few hundred animals are left in the wild.
Difficult words: rude (difficult), umbilical cord (line which joins an unborn baby and its mother), endangered (there’s not many of them in the world).
Small tigers and dogs
Three tiger cubs were rejected by their mother, so they are being raised by a step dog mum.
The two twin girls and their older brother are having a great time with their new step family. They play a lot with their step brothers and sisters. The cubs love playing a game of ball and getting their claws into somebody.
They are really cute and they have become stars at a safari park in China’s Zhejiang Province.
But it won’t be all fun and games forever. The cubs are expected to be reunited with their parents soon.
Difficult words: cub (baby), claw (animal’s big nail), claws into somebody (play rough), all fun and games (happiness), reunite (start to be together again).
Ship hits land
A ship served as a ferry. It travelled between England and France for 22 years until 2012.
It was then renamed and it served another two years. It travelled to and from Belgium.
The moment of the ship’s dramatic retirement was filmed in Turkey. It came into shore fast and scraped to a standstill between two other ships. The ship will be taken apart after 24 years of service.
Difficult words: dramatic (a lot of action), retirement (time when somebody or something stops working), shore (area where the ocean meets land), scrape (move and press into the ground), standstill (stopped moving).
New hand with feelings
A Danish man who lost his hand in a fireworks accident is able to feel again thanks to his new prosthetic hand.
There are several sensors on each finger of the hand. The sensors measure the level of force when the patient grasps something. This force information is then delivered to different sensory nerves in the patient’s upper arm.
The first time when the Danish man used his hand, it was amazing! He could feel things that he hadn’t been able to for nine years. He can feel round, hard and soft things. He is the first man in the world to regain sensory feeling in a false limb.
Difficult words: prosthetic (man-made), several (few), grasp (take and hold something), false limb (an arm or leg made by people to replace a missing arm or leg).
Face with a lot of pictures
A British artist created an animation. She painted her face and took a picture of it. She repeated this process over 750 times. She changed her face paint a little each time. The pictures were then played at high speed.
The artist worked 17 hours a day for five days to create the piece. The artwork is called Ruby and it is about rebirth and the transfer of energy.
Difficult words: rebirth (when something becomes alive again after dying).
Fourteen months at sea
A fisherman went on a fishing trip in Mexico in December 2012, but he was blown out to sea.
He had to drink turtle blood and catch fish and birds with his bare hands. He survived in the Pacific Ocean for an unbelievable 14 months. He was found on a remote coral atoll in his small boat.
The fisherman’s family spoke out about their joy. His brother is still in shock and very grateful to God and all the people who helped his brother.
The man’s mother never lost hope. She always felt that he was alive. Her heart was with him.
Difficult words: remote (far away), atoll (island in the shape of a ring), grateful (feeling that you want to thank somebody), her heart was with him (she believed strongly that he was alive).
Big boulders in Italy
A drone captured the aftermath of a landslide in Northern Italy, after two big boulders rolled down a mountainside.
One of the rocks went through a 300-year-old building. The other stopped just two feet (0.6 meters) from the outside wall of a farmhouse.
There is a third boulder which probably fell generations ago.
Difficult words: drone (unmanned aircraft), aftermath (situation right after a disaster), boulder (large round piece of rock), generations (many years).
Controlled explosion in Germany
An old disused building has been demolished in Germany. It was the biggest controlled explosion ever in Europe.
The building was built in 1972 and it was 381 feet (116 metres) tall. It was used by a university.
The experts used almost a tonne of explosives to turn the tower to dust. It was down in 10 seconds. Once the pile of rubble is cleared, two office buildings will be built there.
Thousands of people came to watch the demolition and to say goodbye.
Difficult words: disused (not used), used to (describes something that was true in the past), rubble (broken parts of a destroyed building), to turn the tower to dust (the tower exploded into very small pieces).
Two ships hit
The Sea Shepherd is an organisation which fights against whale hunting. It has long been challenging the legality of Japan’s whale hunts.
The organisation released a video filmed in the southern ocean. It shows how a Japanese vessel crossed in front of a Sea Shepherd ship and hit it. According to the organisation, the ship was hit as part of an attack by three Japanese boats.
The group says that more than 10,000 whales have been killed since the start of the international moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986.
Difficult words: challenge (question), vessel (ship), moratorium (official stopping of an activity for a period of time).
Two toilets
Using a toilet in Sochi may not be the most comfortable thing to do. Especially, if there’s somebody using another toilet, which is only a meter from you, and not separated by a partition.
The double toilets in Sochi have been seen and discussed recently a lot. There was a lot of activity on Twitter when somebody uploaded the first picture. It prompted questions about how public money was spent, and whether it was being flushed down the toilet.
The Winter Olympics attracted a lot of publicity which has not been positive for the country. This is nothing the Russian authorities could possibly want.
Difficult words: partition (thin wall), prompt (cause), whether (if), flush down the toilet (to waste something, such as money).
First people in Europe
The oldest human footprints in Europe have been discovered in Britain. There are only three other sets of footprints that are older and they are in Africa.
Scientists took digital photographs of the footprints and created a 3D image from them. The images and model were unveiled at a news conference at the British Museum in London. Scientists think that most of the footprints are children’s. There was at least one adult, too.
Discoveries of ancient man’s footprints are extremely rare. Scientists say that the discovery will rewrite our understanding of human occupation of Britain and Europe.
Difficult words: footprint (mark in the ground made by a foot), digital (electronic), 3D image (picture that looks like an actual object), unveil (show), occupation (living there).