Newsademic American English edition 250 -...

May 28, 2015American English edition

Issue Number 250

In this issue

Galápagos Islands eruptionMaking a mummyRohingya and Bangladeshi migrantsStone tools puzzleSaiga deaths in KazakhstanFirst pet dogsAboriginal legendsIsland ecosystem laboratoryPowerful women listHainan Island’s rare gibbonsTrans-Amazon RailroadGiant Pandas anddigesting bambooCocaine-eating mothEastern Partnership meeting“Marriage of the Sea”Top 10 new speciesPresidential election in PolandFirst warm-blooded fishFlag of Planet EarthGlossary Crossword and Wordsearch Puzzle

Part of the ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria (Bernard Gagnon)

Twelve months ago the Islamic State (IS) surprised the leaders of Iraq and the U.S. It captured Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. On May 17, after 12 months of fighting, IS forces took control of Ramadi, another large city in Iraq. Five days later, after a battle with Syrian sol-diers, IS gunmen captured Tadmur. This city is in central Syria. It is also known as Palmyra.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi leads the IS. In the past his organization has been known by several different names. More recently it has been called ISIS and ISIL. Nowadays, Mr. al-Baghdadi, who comes from Iraq, stays in secret places. He is rarely seen in public.

In Islam there is a divide. It is between Sunni and Shia Muslims. This divide, or split, began about 1,400 years ago. Of all the Muslims in the world about 85% are Sunnis. Large numbers of Shia Mus-

lims live in Iran and southern Iraq. Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and Bahrain also have big Shia communities. People who sup-port the IS are mainly Sunnis.

In 2003 the U.S. invaded Iraq. Then, Saddam Hussein was the Iraqi leader. He had controlled the country for over 20 years. Saddam Hussein and most of the people who worked for him were Sun-nis. The leaders of the U.S. claimed that Iraq was developing WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction). They believed that the Iraqi leader would use these weapons to threaten or attack other countries in the Middle East.

George W. Bush, the American pres-ident at that time, decided to launch the invasion. The governments of several other countries such as Britain, Aus-tralia and Poland agreed to help. The invasion was successful and the Iraqi army was quickly defeated. Saddam

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Hussein was captured. A court de-cided that he was guilty of crimes against the Iraqi people. He was sentenced to death.

Many people in the U.S. and Britain are still unhappy about the invasion and occupation of Iraq. They believe that it was illegal un-der international law. No WMD, which was the original reason for the war, were ever found.

In Iraq there are three different groups of people, Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims and Kurds. The Kurds live in the northeast. The Shias are mainly in Baghdad, the capital city, and the south. The northwest and west are mostly Sun-ni areas. After the invasion, fighting broke out between different Iraqi militant Shia and Sunni groups. These groups also fought against the American soldiers who were occupying the country. One of these Sunni armed groups was set up by Mr. al-Baghdadi.

The U.S. helped to train a new Iraqi army and police force. Elec-tions were organized and Iraqis voted for their new leaders. By 2009 many of the foreign troops had left Iraq. The last American soldiers returned to the U.S. at the end of 2011. Shia and Sun-ni militant attacks continued. By this time, the Iraqi government (with its police force and army) was responsible for all security in the country.

In 2011 demonstrations broke out in Syria. The protesters want-ed the country’s president, Bashir al-Assad, to stand down. Mr. al-As-sad and his family have run Syria for over 40 years. Most Syrians are Sunni Muslims. Yet Mr. al-Assad and those who have important jobs in Syria’s government are Alaw-ites. This small religious group is

connected to the Shia branch of the Islamic faith.

Mr. al-Baghdadi and many of his supporters moved from Iraq to northern Syria. There, his group began to attack Syrian government forces. By this time Mr. al-Bagh-dadi’s group was known as ISIS or ISIL. Within a few months it had taken control of much of northwest Syria. Its headquarters was set up in the city of Raqqa.

TURKEY

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Twelve months ago, ISIS forces crossed the border into northwest Iraq and captured Mosul. The Iraqi army fled. Soon after the capture of Mosul, ISIS leaders declared a “new caliphate”. ISIS, they said, had now become the Islamic State. In the past, a caliphate was a large Muslim area ruled by one person. This person, who was known as the caliph, was a religious and political leader. Many ISIS supporters call Mr. al-Baghda-di, Caliph Ibrahim. The IS does not recognize countries like Iraq and Syria. Nor does it believe in democ-racy. The group’s leaders claim that the IS will eventually include most of the Middle East.

Everyone who lives in IS con-trolled areas has to follow very strict religious laws. The IS is now believed to have about 30,000 fight-ers or gunmen. They treat Shia Mus-lims, Christians and people of other religions very harshly. IS gunmen wear black clothing. Many describe them as fanatics who are prepared

to commit mass murder. IS fight-ers carry out frequent executions. These are often filmed and posted on the internet.

The IS has deliberately damaged the ruins of ancient cities in Iraq, such as Nineveh. IS supporters say that, in their version of Islam, an-cient statues and artifacts are for-bidden. Palmyra, in Syria, is famous for its ancient ruins. Many people worry that the IS will now destroy this historic site.

Muslim people all around the world criticize the IS. They insist that it is un-Islamic. What it is do-ing, they add, has nothing to do with the Islamic faith. However, hun-dreds of young Muslim men have left their homes in European coun-tries and other parts of the world to join the IS.

Last year an anti-IS group, or co-alition, was set up. It is led by the U.S. Many European countries and Arab nations agreed to join. Austra-lia is also a member. Most of these countries have agreed to give “mil-itary help, or assistance” to forces in Iraq and Syria that are fighting against the IS. This help is mostly in the form of air strikes, or attacks from military planes. None of these countries plans to send combat sol-diers to Iraq or Syria.

Military commanders argue that only the Iraqi army can defeat the IS. Yet the country’s army is now disorganized. It is also badly led. The only credible military forces in Iraq are the Kurds in the northeast and Shia militia groups in the south. The militia groups are supported by Iran, the most powerful Shia country. The Iraqi government has ordered the Shia militia to retake Ramadi. This could cause further problems, as the city is in one of Iraq’s Sunni areas.


WOLF VOLCANO ERUPTION

The Wolf volcano is on Isabela Island. This is the Galápagos ar-chipelago’s largest island. On May 25, the volcano erupted. Glowing lava could be seen flowing down its southern slopes. The volcano’s last eruption was 33 years ago. The Galápagos Islands are in the Pacific Ocean, off the west coast of South America. They are part of Ecuador. They were all formed by what’s known as a “hotspot”.

Wolf volcano eruption (Galápagos National Park)

The Earth’s crust is made up of huge pieces called tectonic plates, or plates. Deep below the crust is a layer of very hot liquid rock. This is called the mantle. The plates float on the mantle. The edge of one plate can slide over or under another. These edges can also move apart or push into each other. Any sudden movements can cause earthquakes.

Many of the world’s volcanoes are close to where these plates meet. Hotspot volcanoes are different. The Galápagos Islands are on the Nazca Plate. The islands are above a thermal plume. Here, heat from the mantle rises towards the surface. These plumes can melt some of the rocks in the crust. This is called a hotspot. Where this happens the hot liquid rock, called magma, comes to the surface. It then erupts to form a volcano. After magma reaches the surface it is called lava.

Thermal plumes don’t move. They stay in the same place. The Nazca Plate is moving very slowly over the top of the plume. Plates move at about 2.3 inches (59 milli-meters) each year. (A human finger-nail grows at about the same speed.) Therefore, over millions of years, as a hotspot volcano forms, it gradu-ally moves away from the thermal plume. Then, another volcano ap-pears next to it. So the same thermal plume created all of the Galápagos Islands. The islands of Hawaii, in the Pacific Ocean, are another ex-ample of a group of volcanic islands created by a single hotspot.

The Galápagos Islands are fa-mous for their wildlife and their association with Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882). The islands have been separated from any other areas of land for millions of years. Many creatures that live on the islands, such as the giant tortoises, have evolved differently from those in other parts of the world. They are therefore found only on the Galápagos Islands.

Pink Iguana (W. Tapia, GNPD)

Darwin was a naturalist from Britain. Naturalists are people who study plants and animals. They mainly do this by observation. Dar-win visited the Galápagos Islands in 1835. Later, he became famous for his book about evolution. Called On the Origin of Species, it was published in 1859. Darwin collect-ed specimens and made drawings

of birds and other creatures that he found on the Galápagos Islands. These helped him to develop his theory of evolution.

Wolf volcano is about 5,600 feet (1,707 meters) high. It is the highest point in the Galápagos. The volca-no was named after Theodor Wolf (1841 – 1924). He was a German geologist, or scientist who studies rocks. Wolf spent many years study-ing the islands.

When the Wolf volcano erupted there were worries about one of the Galápagos’ more unusual creatures. Called the pink iguana, it lives close to the volcano. About 100 pink iguanas live on Isabela Island. They are not found anywhere else in the world. The iguana has a pink body with some darker stripes. Fortu-nately, the iguana lives on the north side of the volcano. The hot lava from the eruption flowed down its southern slopes.

MUMMY EXPERIMENT

A team of researchers working in Switzerland decided to do an exper-iment. They wanted to find out if it was possible to create a mummy in the same way that the Ancient Egyptians did.

The oldest-known Egyptian mummy is thought to be at least 3,000 years old. The Ancient Egyptians believed that a person traveled to another life after they died. They wanted to preserve the bodies of the dead for their jour-ney to the next life. The Egyptians did not leave any written records about how mummies were made. However, one description does ex-ist. Herodotus wrote it.

Herodotus (484 – 425 BCE) was an Ancient Greek traveler and


historian. He recorded some of the conversations he had with people in Egypt and the other places he visit-ed. Herodotus wrote an account of how the Egyptians mummified, or preserved, dead bodies. Only pha-raohs and other important, or high status, people were mummified.

First, Herodotus describes how all the internal organs were removed from the body. This in-cluded the brain. It was pulled out through the nose. All these or-gans were then put inside special containers. Called canopic jars, they were placed inside the tomb alongside the mummy.

Egyptian mummy

To mummify the body, the Egyp-tians used natron. This salt-like sub-stance can be found in Egypt. Na-tron absorbs water, or moisture. It also prevents decay by stopping the growth of any bacteria. Once the na-tron had absorbed all the moisture, the body was mummified. It was then tightly wrapped in long linen, or cloth, strips. These contained res-in, a sticky substance produced by certain trees.

The researchers wanted to follow Herodotus’s description to see if it worked. To do this they would need to use the body of someone who had recently died. Yet, they did not want to take all the internal organs out. So they decided to mummify a hu-man leg. After a woman died, they were given both her legs. Before the

woman died she had agreed to give her body to scientific research.

The researchers placed one leg in an oven on low heat. In very dry deserts a human body can become naturally mummified. The research-ers thought that the oven might cre-ate the same effect. The other leg was placed in a wooden box on a layer of natron.

After a few days, the research-ers decided to stop the experiment with the leg in the oven. They could see that it was not work-ing. The researchers made daily checks on the leg in the wooden box and recorded the changes they saw. Eventually, after 208 days (or seven months) the leg had be-come mummified.

The leg was much lighter. This was because the natron had taken out, or absorbed, all the moisture from within it. There was no sign of any decay or bacteria. Herodotus’s description seemed to work. Howev-er, there was one difference with his account. Herodotus says that it took 70 days to complete the process. Mummifying the leg in Switzerland took far longer. The air in Egypt is much drier and warmer than it is in Switzerland. The researchers think that this may explain why their mummification took longer.

ROHINGYA MIGRANTS

Ban Ki-moon is the secretary-gen-eral, or leader, of the United Nations (U.N.). On May 23, during a visit to Vietnam, he spoke about the Ro-hingya migrants. In recent weeks hundreds of these people have been left stranded on drifting boats in the Andaman Sea.

The Rohingya people come from the western part of Myanmar (also

called Burma). The Rohingya are Muslims. The majority of people who live in Myanmar follow the Buddhist faith. There are thought to be about one million Rohingya people in Myanmar. Their ancestors moved from Bangladesh to Myan-mar around 200 years ago.

People smuggler boat

Since the 1960s, military leaders have ruled Myanmar. In recent years this has started to change. The coun-try’s government does not recognize the Rohingya. They are discriminat-ed against and not given citizenship. This means that the Rohingya peo-ple are stateless, or have no home country. The military government insists that the Rohingya are in Myanmar unlawfully. It wants them to move to Bangladesh. The govern-ment even calls them Bangladeshis. Many Buddhist people in Myanmar dislike the military government. Yet, few of these people want the Rohingya to stay in their country.

People smugglers, or people traffickers, have been working where the Rohingya live for many months. People smugglers offer to take people to other countries. They do this illegally by secret-ly taking them across borders, or landing them on a country’s beach-es. The traffickers charge people a lot of money to smuggle them into other countries.

Many Rohingya have paid people smugglers to take them


to Malaysia. Malaysia is a main-ly Muslim country. The people smugglers use old boats. Most are dangerous as they are in need of repair. The people smugglers wait until the boats are very full before they set off. They have been land-ing their boats in Thailand close to its border with Malaysia. Those on the boats are then taken to secret jungle camps near the Malay bor-der. There, the traffickers demand more money. Those that can pay are then taken across the border into Malaysia.

The government in Myanmar has not tried to stop the people smug-glers. It is happy that the Rohingya are moving away. However, several weeks ago, Thailand decided to stop traffickers from landing on their coast. Thai navy ships began to stop the smugglers’ boats. They took the boats farther out to sea. As they were unable to land, the smugglers abandoned their crowded boats. The migrants on board were left with lit-tle food and water. Several of these abandoned smugglers’ boats are now drifting in the Andaman Sea. Some believe that as many as 2,500 people are on these boats.

At first, the governments of Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia refused to let the boats land. If they came near, the boats were pushed out to sea again. Some food and water was passed to those on board. Other countries became angry. They said that it was inhumane to leave the mi-grants on these boats. Indonesia and Malaysia then agreed to rescue any boats that came near their coasts. They said that these migrants would be kept in camps. Later, they will be sent back to where they came from.

Not all the people on the boats are Rohingya. Many seem to have come from Bangladesh. They too

were paying the people smugglers. Unlike the Rohingya, these peo-ple were not leaving their homes because they were being persecut-ed. They are what are known as economic migrants. They want to find better jobs in other countries. Mr. Ban said that the leaders of the countries in the region must find a solution to the problem.

WORLD’S OLDEST STONE TOOLS

Scientists working in a desert area in northwest Kenya have made a surprising discovery. They have un-covered a number of very old stone tools. Only our own ancestors were thought to use these types of tools. The scientists’ discovery suggests that this may not be true.

Scientist working where the stone tools were found (West Turkana Archaeological Project)

The tools were used to make sharp flakes, or slices, of stone. A “hammer” stone was used to hit an-other stone. This stone was held on a heavier anvil-like stone. The stone on the anvil would split when hit by the hammer stone. The stone that was struck is a type of flint. Flint will break off in slices. These have very sharp edges. Creating sharp pieces of flint in this way is called knapping. The shape-edged stones could be used for cutting meat off dead animals. Other possibilities are opening nuts or cutting into pieces

of wood to find insects or insect eggs inside them.

Trying to work out very ear-ly human history is difficult. Hominins were a group of early human-like species. This group in-cludes modern-humans, or Homo sapiens, and our nearest evolu-tionary ancestors. Our genus is Homo. It was thought that ancient hominins in this genus were the first to make stone tools. Before the recent discovery, the earliest known stone tools were 2.6 mil-lion years old. This was when our own larger-brained genus began to spread across Africa’s open grass-lands. Being able to make stone tools was what made our genus different from the others.

The scientists discovered the stone tools in Kenya by accident. After getting lost, they climbed a hill to look for the best route. The scientists came across a apartment area of rocky land. It was the type of place they had been looking for. The scientists decided to search the area. Within a short time they had found several stone tools.

A layer of volcanic ash was just below the stone tools. From other sites in Kenya and Ethio-pia, it’s known that this ash layer is 3.3 million years old. The sci-entists examined small pieces of rock found just above and below the tools. These confirmed that the tools were around 3.3 million years old. So far, no Homo fossils have ever been found that go back to this time. The tools are around 700,000 years older than the earli-est known Homo fossils.

It’s not known which creature made the tools. A hominin called Kenyanthropus platyops is a pos-sibility. Fossils of this hominin have been found not far away.


Australopithecus afarensis might have made them. This species is as-sociated with a very famous fossil known as “Lucy”. Lucy was discov-ered in 1974 in Ethiopia. She lived 3.2 million years ago. Another pos-sibility is that an earlier, as yet un-known, member of the genus Homo made the tools.

MYSTERY SAIGA DEATHS

Animal experts from Britain and Germany have recently traveled to Kazakhstan. Officials in the country requested their help. Thousands of the country’s saiga antelopes have suddenly died. On May 27, Kazak officials announced that 121,000 carcasses, or dead animals, had been found. All were in one of three areas where saigas live.

Saiga antelope

Large herds of saigas used to roam across Central Asia and parts of China. In recent decades their numbers have fallen. Now-adays, saigas are only found in three areas in Kazakhstan and one area in Russia. Before the mystery deaths began, the popu-lation was roughly 300,000. Most are in Kazakhstan.

Saigas are about the same size as large sheep. Their coat, or fur, is light brown in summer. In winter it turns white. The animals’ white winter coat is much thicker. Saigas have thin legs. Males are usually

bigger than the females. The males have horns, which are about ten inches (25 centimeters) long. The lower two-thirds of their horns are spiral shaped.

Saigas have an unusual face or head. Their eyes stick out from the sides of their head. The animals have a large humped nose. It hangs over the mouth. In summer the saiga’s nose helps to filter dust out of the air the animal breathes. The air in Kazakhstan is very cold in winter. At this time of the year, the large nose warms the air before it enters the animal’s lungs.

Saigas are plant eaters. They mainly feed on grasses and lichens. The animals live in herds of around 30 to 40 animals. However, they will group together in much larger num-bers during their summer migration.

Officials say that the die-off has been very dramatic. Where the an-imals have died there are no sur-vivors. The females have recently given birth to their calves. Mothers and calves have fallen down next to each other. Before dying, the ani-mals suffer from diarrhea and seem to have difficulty breathing.

The animal experts suspect that a bacterium or virus is causing the deaths. They have taken samples from several dead animals. These are now being tested. Some people have suggested that the animals might be dying from something else.

The Baikonur Cosmodrome is about 186 miles (300 kilometers) from where the saigas died. This is where Russia’s space rockets are launched. Kazakhstan used to be within the Russian-led Soviet Union. During this time, Russia built the Cosmodrome as part of its space program. After Kazakhstan became an independent country in 1991, it agreed that Russia could

continue to use the Cosmodrome for its rocket launches.

On May 18, a Russian rocket ex-ploded not long after lift off. It was carrying a Mexican satellite. The rocket launch was organized to put the satellite into orbit. Some people suspect that much of the rocket’s toxic, or poisonous, fuel landed in the area where the saigas are dy-ing. The experts think that this is an unlikely explanation. However, soil samples are also being tested to see if they contain any rocket fuel.

FIRST PET DOGS

In the past humans have domesti-cated a number of animals. These include dogs, horses, pigs, goats, sheep, and chickens. Scientists be-lieve that they have worked out when horses, pigs, goats, sheep, and chickens became farm animals. Yet the history of dogs is more of a mys-tery. Now researchers from Sweden think that they have found a clue. It may help to explain why there seems to be such a close relation-ship between humans and pet dogs.

Before humans became farmers they were hunter-gatherers. Small goups moved from place to place, hunting wild animals and collect-ing fruit, nuts and berries. Wolves are the ancestors of all dogs. Humans were believed to have


started training “wolf-dogs’ around 10,000 years ago. This was when humans were changing from hunter-gatherers to farmers.

Recently, the Swedish research-ers took part in an expedition to northern Russia. They traveled along some of the larger rivers. The researchers collected the bones they saw sticking out from the riv-erbanks. They were looking for the bones of long-dead animals such as woolly mammoths.

The researchers picked up a small piece of bone. They thought that it might be part of a reindeer’s rib. The researchers examined the bone when they returned to their laboratory in Sweden. Using spe-cial tests, they worked out that it was 35,000 years old. They also managed to extract some DNA from the bone.

The DNA was a surprise. It con-firmed that the bone belonged to a wolf-like creature. It seems to show that the creature was “midway” between a wolf and a modern-day dog. This means that today’s dogs “split” from wolves around 35,000 or 40,000 years ago. The age of the bone suggests that humans domesti-cated dogs many thousands of years before they became farmers.

The researchers think that wolves may have followed some hunter-gatherer groups. The bod-ies of the animals that the humans killed would have attracted the wolves. The humans could have kept some of the wolf cubs. When these cubs grew up they became tame, or pets. The “pet wolves’ may have protected the humans from other wolves and dangerous animals. They could also help them to track and kill wild animals.

Early humans and wild wolves both hunted the same animals.

When working together, they could have been more successful. First, the wolf-dogs tracked down the an-imals and tired them out. Humans then used spears to kill them. The animals’ meat was then shared with the hunting dogs.

Humans and dogs have a very close relationship. Living side-by-side for a very long time could explain this. If the recently discov-ered bone is from an ancient do-mesticated wolf, then humans and dogs have evolved together for at least 35,000 years.

ABORIGINAL LEGENDS

Researchers have been listening to some of the legends told by Ab-original people in Australia. These stories have been passed from gen-eration to generation. The research-ers believe that some of the legends describe events that happened many thousands of years ago.

One example is a legend about a “fire devil” coming down from the Sun. In the story the devil crashed into the ground and killed every-thing in the surrounding area. In the 1930s local people still refused to go anywhere near the place where the devil hit the ground. They believed that if anyone went close to this area the devil would burn and eat them.

The researchers believe that this legend describes an event that

happened about 4,700 years ago. Then, a meteor crashed into an area in the central part of Australia. Be-fore hitting the ground, the meteor broke into 13 or 14 pieces. These are now known as the Henbury Me-teorites. The site was investigated in 1930. Large amounts of iron-nickel were found. This is what the mete-or was made of. This meteor strike would have been a dramatic sight. It would have looked like a large fireball in the sky. As each piece hit the ground, there would have been huge explosions.

The ancestors of modern-day hu-mans (Homo sapiens) are thought to have begun leaving Africa between 70,000 and 60,000 years ago. The first groups traveled eastwards to China, then south to Indonesia and Australia. At that time, sea levels were much lower. So it may have been possible to walk from Indo-nesia to Australia. Ancient humans are believed to have reached Aus-tralia sometime between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago.

The British explorer Captain James Cook (1728 – 1779) arrived on the eastern coast of Australia for the first time in 1770. For Europe-ans, Captain Cook is known as the person who “discovered” Australia, even though previous expeditions had landed on different parts of Australia’s coastline before. Even-tually, the British set up the first Eu-ropean colony in Australia in 1788. Called Port Jackson, it is now part of Sydney, the country’s largest city. It’s not known how many people were in Australia when the British arrived. Some believe that it was be-tween 500,000 and 750,000.

Some of the first meetings be-tween Europeans and the local tribes were friendly. Yet others were violent. Local people became angry


when the newly arrived Europeans began to take their lands. Disease was a problem. The Europeans brought illnesses such as smallpox, measles and tuberculosis. These diseases had never existed in Australia before. The Aboriginal people had little or no im-munity to them. Many died.

For many years Aboriginal peo-ple (or Indigenous Australian people) were treated very badly. This has changed in more recent times. Several Australian prime ministers have offi-cially apologized for what happened in the past. Nowadays, some ancient tribal lands have been returned.

The researchers spoke with an-other group of Aboriginal people. They live near the coast. One of their stories is about a giant wave that comes far inland. In the legend only those near the mountaintops survive. The researchers dug into the ground. They found a layer of sand and small shells about 6.5 feet (two meters) below the surface. The area must have been hit by a giant tsunami. More work will need to be done to find out when this happened. Tsunamis are giant waves caused by powerful undersea earthquakes.

Other researchers now believe that some ancient stories may even describe the rise in the surrounding sea levels. This happened at the end of the last ice age, or about 11,000 years ago.

NATURAL EVOLUTION LABORATORY

Scientists in Japan are planning to start a long-term study of a new island. The study, the scientists say, will show how nature is able to change a barren area of rock into one that supports life. They describe the island as a “natural evolution laboratory”.

In 2013 a new island appeared. It is made from an undersea volcano’s lava. The island grew in size. It then merged with the nearby island of Nishinoshima. This is another island that was formed by a volcano on the seabed. Now the new larger island has an area of 0.9 square miles (2.5 square kilometers). Cooling lava has formed all its rocks. Nishinoshima is about 584 miles (940 kilometers) south of Tokyo, Japan’s capital city.

Nishinoshima (Japan Coast Guard)

The scientists say that they will be interested to see how birds will help to start a new ecosystem. In time, there will be many bird drop-pings on the island. The birds may leave feathers and some may even die on the island. All these things will help to create a type of soil. Bird droppings are often used as a fertil-izer. So this soil will be nutrient rich.

The wind and sea are expected to bring plant seeds to the island. Some seeds, the scientists say, might ar-rive stuck to birds’ feet. Once the plants begin to grow, the island will begin to change. Dying plants will help to create more soil. They will also increase the number of seeds. The scientists expect Nishinoshima to gradually change. A similar thing happened to the island of Surtsey.

Surtsey is another volcanic is-land. It is close to the coast of Ice-land. The undersea eruption that created the island began in 1963. It lasted for four years. Surtsey is about the same size as Nishinoshima.

Two years after it appeared, Surt-sey was declared to be a nature re-serve. Even today only a few scien-tists are allowed to visit the island. By 1965 the first plants had started growing on Surtsey. Two years later there were mosses and lichens. Li-chens are plant-like organisms that can grow on rocks. Mosses and li-chens now cover most of the island. In 1998 the first bush was seen on the island. Now about 70 different types of plant grow on the island.

The increasing number of birds on Surtsey helped the plants to spread. Seabirds first built nests on the island three years after the erup-tions ended. Surtsey is now home to 12 bird species.

The island of Surtsey, Iceland

The Japanese scientists predict that it will take longer for life to appear on Nishinoshima. Surtsey is only 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) from the coast of Iceland. There-fore birds and seeds had a much shorter distance to travel. The scientists say that if anyone visits Nishinoshima they must be careful not to take any seeds or other types of wildlife with them.

MOST POWERFUL WOMEN

Since 2004 an American publishing company called Forbes has pro-duced a list of “powerful women”. It claims that the 100 women on its list are “the most powerful in the


world”. This year’s list was released on May 26. For the fifth year in a row Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, came top.

Before becoming a politician Mrs. Merkel worked as a chemist. She has been Germany’s leader, or chancellor, since 2005. Mrs. Merkel has won three elections. Now, aged 60, she is half way through her third four-year term as chancellor. Since Forbes started producing its list, Mrs. Merkel has been on it 12 times. She has topped the list nine times.

Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor

Being powerful can mean many different things. Forbes uses cer-tain rules, or criteria, to work out who comes where on its list. One is the amount of money for which the person is responsible. This does not have anything to do with how much she is paid. For a politician, it is the size of the economy of the country that she leads. For a businesswom-an, it is the value of the company of which she is in charge.

Another rule that Forbes uses is how much influence a person has. So if someone, such as a politician, makes many important decisions that affect a country, group of coun-tries, or international organizations,

she has a lot of influence. Other cri-teria include a person’s wealth and how many times they are mentioned in newspapers and other media.

Mrs. Merkel tops the list because of the size of the German economy. It is the fourth-largest in the world. The biggest economy is the U.S. It is followed by China and Japan. Eight other heads of government, or heads of state, are included in the top 100. After Mrs. Merkel, the two highest are Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s presi-dent, and the president of South Ko-rea, Park Geun-hye. Ms. Rousseff is seventh and Ms. Park eleventh.

Twenty-three company bosses are in the Forbes list. At number five, Mary Barra is the highest. She is the boss of General Motors, an American company. It is one of the world’s largest carmakers. Sheryl Sandberg is next in eighth place. She is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Facebook Company. The COO looks after the day-to-day running of a company.

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton is at number two. She is married to Bill Clinton. He was the American president from 1993 to 2001. Mrs. Clinton was secretary of

state from 2009 to 2013. The secre-tary of state is one of the U.S.’s most important politicians. This person frequently travels all over the world. He or she speaks and negotiates with leaders and governments of other countries. Mrs. Clinton is likely to be a candidate in the U.S.’s next presi-dential election, in 2016. If she wins, Mrs. Clinton would be America’s first woman president.

Melinda Gates is third. Her hus-band is Bill Gates. He is a co-found-er of the Microsoft Company and one of the world’s richest people. Mr. Gates stepped down as the boss of Microsoft in 2008. Now he and his wife run a charitable foundation. Called the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it gives large amounts of money to find cures for diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. It also helps to reduce poverty in many less developed countries.

Forbes produces many other an-nual lists. These include the world’s richest people, the world’s best air-ports, and the company bosses who earn the most money.

WORLD’S RAREST APE

Scientists from China and Britain have devised a plan to save Hainan gibbons. The animals only live on Hainan Island, in southern China. Only 25 remain. The plan includes the building of high treetop bridg-es. These will connect different areas of forest.

Gibbons are different from mon-keys. They are a type of small ape. Nearly all apes are tailless. Gibbons are found in northeast India, Ban-gladesh, southern China, and Indo-nesia. Gibbons use their long arms to move through the trees by swing-ing from branch to branch.


Some people describe Hainan gibbons as the “world’s rarest ape”. The gibbons are slender with long arms and no tail. Males are covered in black fur. Some have white or lighter colored fur on their cheeks. Females are different. Their fur is a golden or yellowish-brown color. They have a few patches of darker fur including a black “streak” on the top of their heads. For this reason, the gibbons are also known as the Hainan black-crested gibbon.

Hainan gibbons “sing” to each other. It’s thought that they do this to attract a mate, or partner. The gibbons eat fruit, leaves and insects. These are found in the forests where the gibbons live. Breeding females have one offspring, or baby, every two years.

Hainan gibbons

Much of the lowland areas of Hainan Island used to be covered in forest. In the 1950s there were at least 2,000 gibbons on the island. In the 1960s many of the trees were felled, or cut down. This was done for the wood and to clear areas for farming and rubber plantations. These industries brought many more people to the island. So the number of buildings and roads increased. People cut down trees for firewood. This was used for heating homes and cooking. Some gibbons were killed for their body parts. These were then used to make traditional Chinese medicines.

Today, there are only a few areas of the original forest. These are not connected. Roads, farmland and electricity power lines divide them. The scientists say that several of the remaining male gibbons seem reluc-tant to mate. They are not sure why. However, the scientists think that this is likely to change if the gib-bons’ habitat increases in size.

The scientists’ plan includes the building of special bridges. These will be high above the ground. The bridges will connect areas of for-est that have been separated. The scientists call the bridges “canopy walkways”. They will be designed to look like they are a part of the nat-ural forest. The first bridges are to be built later this year. The scientists will play recordings of the gibbons’ songs. They hope that this will en-courage some males to move to the new areas. There, they will be able to set up new family groups.

TWIN OCEAN RAILROAD

The Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, recently visited four countries in South America. After Xi Jinping, the country’s president, Mr. Li is China’s most important leader. Mr. Li arrived in Brazil on May 19. A few days later he traveled to Peru. In both countries he dis-cussed plans for building of a new railroad.

Some people call the proposed rail link the Twin Ocean Railroad. This is because it will connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. If built, the railroad will be about 3,290 miles (5,300 kilometers) long. It will start near the Port of Açu, in Brazil. This port is being enlarged. It is not far from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second largest city.

The railroad will have to pass through thick forests, swamps and over the Andes Mountains. Chinese engineers have experience of build-ing railroads at high altitude. Several years ago they completed a railroad line that connects Beijing, the Chi-nese capital city, with Lhasa. This is the largest city in Tibet, which is a region of China. The city, which is on the Tibetan Plateau, is one of the highest in the world. Parts of the railroad are 16,400 feet (5,000 me-ters) above sea level. Sealed carriag-es protect passengers from the high altitude. They are similar to aircraft cabins.

In Peru, the railroad may have to go through a desert. It will then go to Lima, Peru’s capital city, or Ilo. This part of the route is yet to be de-cided. Ilo is a small port city. Boliv-ia is next to Peru. It is a landlocked country. Landlocked countries have no coastline. They can have diffi-culties in exporting the goods they make or crops they grow, to other nations. This is because they have to be transported to another country to be loaded onto ships. Recently, the government of Peru gave Bolivia permission to develop the port of Ilo. When work is completed, Ilo


will become Bolivia’s connection, or access, to the sea.

In Brazil, Mr. Li met with Dil-ma Rousseff. She is the country’s president. He then had talks in Peru. There, Mr. Li met with the Peruvi-an president, Ollanta Humala. The leaders agreed to carry out a fea-sibility study on the new railroad. People working on this study will try to work out how easy or difficult it would be to build the railroad. If construction work begins, it is ex-pected to take six years to complete. The cost is estimated to be around $10 billion (£6.5 billion). This mon-ey will probably come from Chinese banks.

Dilma Rousseff, president of Brazil, welcomes the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang on his arrivalRa

Brazil is the largest country in South America. It is one of China’s most important trading partners. Many Chinese-made goods are sent to Brazil. China buys, or imports, large amounts of iron ore, oil, cere-al crops, and soybeans from Brazil. The new railroad would be used to transport these commodities from Brazil’s interior to the Port of Açu or the port in Peru. There, they would be loaded onto ships. China is also one of Peru’s biggest trading part-ners. China buys much of the gold and copper mined in Peru.

The proposed new rail link is controversial. Many environmen-talists are worried about it. The rail-road will go through the Amazon rainforest. Other parts of the route

are within protected areas. Some are indigenous reserves, or the home-lands of native tribes. These people have lived in Brazil’s forests for thousands of years.

PANDA DIGESTION

Giant pandas often sleep for 12 hours. They spend most of their waking hours eating bamboo. The animals eat little else. Some people joke that giant pandas eat all day just to make enough energy to keep on eating.

Researchers in China have been studying how giant pandas digest their food. Pandas, they say, seem to have a carnivore’s (or meat-eat-ing animal) digestive system. So, even though it’s nearly all they eat, giant pandas find it hard to di-gest bamboo. This, the researchers say, might explain some of the an-imal’s behavior.

Giant pandas are an endangered species. The large black and white bears are native to China. They live only in a few mountainous areas of the country. Chinese officials estimate that there are now about 1,600 giant pandas left in the wild. In China there are special breeding programs for pandas. About 350 have been bred in captivity. Howev-er, captive-bred giant pandas have difficulty surviving in the wild.

Male pandas can be six feet (1.8 meters) long and weigh 350 pounds (160 kilograms). Females are small-er. In the wild pandas are solitary, or live on their own. The animals are territorial. They have their own areas and only get together to mate. Pandas spend most of their time eating. Unlike other types of bear, they do not hibernate, or go to sleep, during the winter months.

The researchers collected scats, or fecal samples, from 45 giant pan-das. These pandas live in a protect-ed area. The samples were collected throughout the year. By studying the scats, the researchers worked out what percentage of pandas’ food is digested. They say that, of all the bamboo stems and leaves pandas eat, only 17% is broken down.

Giant panda (Shizhao)

Several types of bacteria live quite naturally in the alimentary ca-nal, or gut, of mammals. (This is the long tube, starting at the mouth and including the stomach and intes-tines, by which mammals, including humans, digest food and dispose of the remaining solid waste.) The gut bacteria help to break down food. The researchers say that the bacte-ria in the panda’s gut are similar to those of other bears. Yet these bears are mainly meat eaters.

Enzymes are also important for digestion. Mammals naturally pro-duce these substances. However, the researchers discovered that pandas lack the genes that produce plant-di-gesting enzymes. What’s more, oth-er animals that eat large amounts of vegetation have a different type of gut. For example, a cow’s stomach has four separate chambers. These help them to digest all the grass they eat.

Giant pandas evolved from bears that ate both meat and plants. They


are thought to have started eating bamboo around two million years ago. It is not known why. For some reason, other types of food may have become difficult to find. Yet, even though pandas changed their diet long ago, their gut has not changed. They have not developed, or evolved, a cow-like stomach. Their gut still seems more suited to being a carnivore and not a herbi-vore, or plant eater.

Pandas are well known for their breeding habits. There is only a two or three day period in the year when a female can become preg-nant. In captivity, it can be difficult to get males and females to mate at the right time. In the wild, females might have only one cub every two years. The researchers suspect that the pandas’ inefficient digestive sys-tem may help to explain their breed-ing difficulties. However, more work will need to be done to find out if this is true.

NEW DRUG WAR WEAPON?

Cocaine is an unlawful drug. It is made from the leaves of the coca plant. Most of the world’s illegal cocaine comes from plants grown in Colombia’s jungles. The gov-ernment of Colombia has been spending large amounts of money trying to destroy these plants. This operation is a part of what’s often called “the war on drugs”. Now, the government is thinking about fighting this war with a new weap-on: caterpillars.

A militant group called Farc has been fighting against government forces in Colombia for over 50 years. The group’s name is short for the Revolutionary Armed Forc-es of Colombia. Farc’s supporters

dislike the system of government in Colombia. At least 220,000 people have been killed since the fighting with Farc began. Thousands of oth-ers have had to leave their homes because of the violence.

Eloria Noyesi moth caterpillars on coca leaf

Farc is believed to have about 8,000 well-armed fighters. They are based in secret jungle camps. Much of Farc’s money is thought to come from cocaine. The drug is made in the camps. It is then sold to criminal gangs in other parts of the world. Today, about 43% of all the cocaine in the world is made in Colombia. Most of the cocaine smuggled into the U.S. comes from Colombia.

Coca plants grow to a height of five feet (1.5 meters). The Co-lombian government tries to de-stroy illegal coca plants. Soldiers have pulled many plants out of the ground. However, aerial spraying is the preferred method. Planes spray a weedkiller, or herbicide, over jungle areas where the plants are thought to grow. Yet, some say that this herbicide (called gly-phosate) does not always kill the plants. The leaves may die, but the stems survive. Soon afterwards the plants can sprout new leaves.

The American government pays for much of the spraying operation. Some scientists now think that glyphosate is a health hazard, or danger. They say that it can cause cancers. Recently,

Colombia’s president, Juan Manu-el Santos, declared that glyphosate would no longer be used.

The government is now think-ing about using a type of moth to control or destroy the illegal coca plants. This moth is called the co-caine tussock moth (Eloria noye-si). It lives in the jungles in this part of South America. The moth is a beige color. Its larvae, or cat-erpillars, only eat the leaves from the coca plant.

Surprisingly, the caterpillars do not die from cocaine poisoning. Each female tussock moth produc-es about 1,000 eggs in its lifetime. The caterpillars that hatch from the eggs have a big appetite. They keep growing for about one month. During this time each caterpillar will eat about 50 leaves. They also feed on the plant’s shoots, or new branches. A coca plant will die if it is “attacked” by these caterpillars several times.

Plane sprays herbicides over jungle in Colombia

The Colombian government has completed a successful test. Some coca plants were grown at an army base. Moths then laid their eggs on the plants. The test worked, as most plants died. Now plans are being made to breed tens of thou-sands of cocaine tussock moths. These would be released in jungle areas where Farc fighters or drug gangs produce cocaine. The moths will find the coca plants. This is a big advantage over spraying.


This map shows countries to which news stories refer in this issue. Visit www.newsademic.com for more detailed world maps.

USA

UK

THAILANDHainan Island

SWITZERLAND

SWEDENRUSSIA

POLAND

PERU

MYANMAR

MOROCCO

MALAYSIA

LATVIA

KENYA

KAZAKHSTAN

JAPAN

ITALYITALY

IRAQ

INDONESIA

ICELAND

GERMANY

GalapagosIslands

EGYPT

COLOMBIA

CHINA

BRAZIL

BOLIVIA

BANGLADESH

AUSTRALIA

Tibet

SYRIA

Other tests need to be done to make sure that the moths do not attack other plants. Some people worry that the thousands of extra moths might cause other problems. It’s possible that Farc fighters might use large amounts of pesticides, or chemicals that kill insects, to try to get rid of the moths.

Peace talks between the Colom-bian government and Farc’s leaders began in 2012. However, because of recent disagreements, these talks are currently suspended.

EASTERN PARTNERSHIP

In 2009 the European Union (EU) set up a new program called the Eastern Partnership. The partnership mem-bers are the EU and six countries that used to be within the Russian-led Soviet Union. These are: Armenia,

Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldo-va, and Ukraine. The latest two-day Eastern Partnership meeting began on May 21. It was held in Riga, the capital of Latvia.

Eastern Partnership group photograph

After the end of the Second World War (1939 – 1945), Russian soldiers occupied many countries in Eastern Europe. Later, these countries be-came a part of, or were controlled by, the Soviet Union. They became known as the Warsaw Pact or So-viet bloc. The Warsaw Pact was a military alliance. For many years

it opposed the NATO military alli-ance. NATO stands for North Atlan-tic Treaty Organization. The U.S., Canada and most Western European countries are NATO members.

The Soviet Union began to break up in 1989. Many Eastern European countries declared their indepen-dence and elected their own leaders in 1991. Most are now part of NATO and the EU. For instance, by 2004 the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hun-gary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland had all joined NATO and become EU members.

The Eastern Partnership was cre-ated to improve trade and travel be-tween the six countries and the EU. Each year the EU gives these coun-tries a large sum of money. This is to be used for making reforms, pro-moting democracy and removing in-equalities. However, in recent years, Russia has become suspicious of


the Eastern Partnership. The six member countries are within what Russian leaders believe is their country’s sphere of influence. This is an area beyond a country’s bor-ders within which it thinks it has, or should have, control.

The last Eastern Partnership meeting was in 2013. It took place in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Then, Viktor Yanukovych, who was the president of Ukraine, refused to sign an EU trading agreement. He said that his country would join a trading group that was being set up by Russia. Mr. Yanukovych’s deci-sion led to large demonstrations in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital city. After months of protests, Mr. Yanukovych fled the country. The protest leaders then set up a new government.

UKRAINE

ARMENIA

BELARUS

RUSSIA

Riga

AZERBAIJANMOLDOVA GEORGIA

EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES

Russia’s leaders and many Rus-sian-speaking people in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine were unhap-py about what had happened. They claimed that the new government was unlawful. Crimea is a pen-insula at the northern end of the Black Sea. For many years it was a part of Russia. Russian leaders gave it to Ukraine about 60 years ago. Then, Ukraine was within the Soviet Union. At that time, no one thought that it would ever become an independent country.

Russia annexed, or took over, Crimea. Most people who live there welcomed this. However, it angered

Ukraine’s new leaders and the lead-ers of the U.S. and EU. Since taking over Crimea, Russia has been sup-porting armed separatist, or rebel, groups in Eastern Ukraine. These groups have been fighting against Ukrainian government forces.

Most of the 28 EU countries’ leaders were at the meeting. Before it began Angela Merkel, the chan-cellor of Germany, and France’s president, François Hollande, spoke. They said that the purpose of the Eastern Partnership was not to persuade the six countries to join the EU. The two leaders insisted that the partnership was not “an-ti-Russia” and not “directed against any country”.

SENSA FESTIVAL

Venice’s annual Festa della Sensa (Sensa festival) was held on May 14. The festival is best known for a special ceremony. Called the “Mar-riage of the Sea”, it was first per-formed over 1,000 years ago.

The festival takes place on As-cension Day, or the Feast of the Ascension. This type of feast is an annual religious celebration and not a large meal. Ascension Day is an important day in the Christian calendar. Christians believe that Je-sus Christ is the Son of God. In the Christian faith, Jesus went up to, or ascended into, heaven on Ascension Day almost 2,000 years ago. The date of this Christian feast changes each year. Last year, Ascension Day was on May 29. In Venetian “sen-sa” means ascension. Venetian is the language that is spoken in Venice and the surrounding area.

Venice is a world famous city. It is one of the most popular tour-ist destinations. Around 20 million

people visit Venice each year. The city is in a saltwater lagoon at the northern end of the Adriatic Sea. Venice was built on 117 islands. Most of the city’s buildings are very old and intricately decorated. Many were built on large pieces of wood that were sunk into the lagoon. Ven-ice has few streets and no cars. Its “roads’ are canals, and most trans-port is done by boat. There are over 400 bridges in the city.

The Bissona Serenissima in Venice

Venetians often call their city “La Serenissima”. This means the “most serene”. Today, the word “se-rene” is used to describe someone or something that is calm, peaceful or untroubled. In older days, serene meant “supreme” or “royal”. Ven-ice is a part of Italy. Yet, between the year 700 and the late 1700s, it was an independent “city state”. For many years, Venice was one of the world’s richest and most powerful cities. Then, the city’s wealthy fami-lies selected Venice’s leader. He was called the doge.

Doges used a specially made large boat, or barge. Called the Bu-centaur (or Bucintoro), it had two decks. The last barge used by the doge was built in 1729. It was 115 feet (35 meters) long. The boat was richly decorated. The doge’s throne was at the back. In the main area, or salon, there was enough room to seat 90 people. The Bucentaur was manned by 40 sailors and rowed by 168 oarsmen.


On the day of the Sensa festival the Bucentaur would lead a long procession of boats out into the Adriatic Sea. The doge would then pray for the seas to remain calm. Later, a golden ring was added to the ceremony. It was thrown into the sea from the deck of the barge. The ring was a symbol of the “mar-riage” between the city of Venice and the surrounding seas.

Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of France, captured Venice in 1798. He ordered his soldiers to burn the Bucentaur. It is said that it took over 350 mules to carry away all of the boat’s gold decorations. Some small wooden parts of the barge can be seen at one of Venice’s museums.

Nowadays, on Ascension Day, there is a re-enactment of the Mar-riage of the Sea ceremony. A smaller boat, called the Bissona Serenissi-ma, leads the procession. The mayor of Venice acts as the doge.

Part of a Canaletto painting showing the Bucentaur

A replica, or copy, of the last Bu-centaur is now being built at one of Venice’s historic shipyards. Work began several years ago. By the time it is finished hun-dreds of people will have taken part in the project. They include shipbuilders, jewelers and wood-carvers.

NEW SPECIES – TOP 10

The International Institute for Spe-cies Exploration (IISE) is an Ameri-can science organization. In 2008 it produced a list of ten newly discov-ered living organisms. This is now an annual event. Each of the new species is one of many that have been registered during the previous year. The IISE announced its 2015 “Top 10 New Species’ on May 21.

Bone-house wasp

When a species is “discovered”, “identified” or “classified” scientists called taxonomists have spent time studying and describing it. They de-cide which other species it is related to. The scientists also record the organism’s physical characteristics and its behavior. This includes how and what it eats, its habitat, or places where it lives, and how it reproduces.

So far, less than two million spe-cies have been officially registered. Nowadays, researchers identify about 18,000 new ones every year. Some taxonomists think that there may be as many as ten million spe-cies that are yet to be classified. If this figure is correct, less than a fifth of all the living things on the Earth have been discovered. Many new species, such as new types of bac-teria, are very small and can only be seen with microscopes.

For its annual Top 10, the IISE usually selects species that are unusual. This year’s list includes: a colorful sea slug, a plant, a wasp,

a spider that cartwheels, a puffer fish, a frog, a new stick insect, and a strange dinosaur. Three well-pre-served skeletons of this dinosaur were found in the U.S. These crea-tures were about ten feet (3.5 me-ters) in length and five feet (1.5 me-ters) tall. They had feathers, hollow bones, and a beak like a parrot. The dinosaur has been named Anzu wy-liei. Yet some people jokingly call it the “chicken from hell”. These creatures died out with the other di-nosaurs 66 million years ago.

The new wasp species was selected because of the female’s unusual behavior. The bone-house wasp (Deuteragenia ossarium) comes from China. It is 0.5 inches (1.5 centimeters) long. The female makes a nest with separate cells, or small chambers. The wasp makes one cell and then kills a spider. The spider is put in the cell. The wasp lays an egg next to it and closes, or seals, the cell. After laying its first egg, the wasp kills another spider for the next cell. When the wasp larvae hatch they feed on the dead spiders.

Surprisingly, the nest’s final cell does not contain an egg or dead spi-der. Instead, the female wasp fills it with as many as 13 dead ants. It then seals the nest. The dead ants give off a chemical-like smell. This deters, or puts off, larger predators, which feed on insect larvae and use scent to find them.

The cartwheeling spider (Ce-brennus rechenbergi) comes from Morocco. It lives in the desert sands. The spiders have a leg span of about 0.75 inches (1.9 centimeters). Females are bigger than males. When the spider is threatened, it stays still. Yet, if the danger becomes more threatening it runs away. As the spider runs, it


starts to cartwheel. Its cartwheel-ing speed is faster than its running speed. The spider can do cart-wheels up and down hills as well as on apartment sand.

Cartwheeling spider

A group of 11 leading taxono-mists, from several countries, de-cide which organisms are included in each year’s Top 10 New Spe-cies list. The list is always pub-lished around May 23. This was the birthday of Carolus Linnaeus (1707 – 1778). He was a scientist from Sweden. Linnaeus is often called the “father of taxonomy”. He started the classification sys-tem that is used to record all living and extinct organisms.

POLAND’S NEW PRESIDENT

A presidential election was held in Po-land on May 24. The result surprised many people. They expected the in-cumbent, Bronisław Komorowski, to be reelected. Yet, Andrzej Duda was declared to be the winner. Mr. Duda is one of Poland’s 51 members of the European Parliament. He is 43 years old and not well known.

After the end of the Second World War (1939 – 1945), Poland became a communist country. During this time, it was one of many Russian-led Soviet Union satellite nations. A satellite na-tion is one that is politically and economically dependent on a

larger country. The Soviet Union began to break up in 1989. In the same year Poland declared its in-dependence and elected its own leaders. In 2004 it became a mem-ber of the European Union (EU).

In Poland the president has less power than the prime minister. The president is head of state but the prime minister runs the country. The president is the leader of the coun-try’s armed forces (army, navy and air force). He or she does make some decisions about foreign affairs, or Po-land’s dealings with other countries. The president has the power to veto, or block, laws passed by the parliament. Yet it is unusual for this to happen.

Andrzej Duda, Poland’s new president

The president is elected by popular vote. So all adults can vote in presi-dential elections. The prime minister is not directly elected. He or she is usual-ly the leader of the party, or coalition (group of parties), that has most elected members in the Sejm. Like many oth-er countries, Poland has two “houses’ of parliament. The Sejm is the parlia-ment’s lower house, or chamber. The upper house is called the Senat.

The two largest political groups or parties in Poland are Civic Plat-form (PO) and Law and Justice (PiS). Ewa Kopacz is Poland’s prime minister. Both she and Mr. Komorowski are members of PO.

In Poland a person can only win a presidential election if they get more than 50% of the votes. If this does not happen, a second, or run-off, election is

held. The two candidates who got most votes in the first round then contest the run-off. This is what happened in the re-cent election. The first round took place on May 10. There were 11 candidates. Mr. Duda, who was the PiS candidate, got 35% of the votes. Mr. Komorowski came second with 34%.

Many people did not expect a run-off election. They thought that Mr. Komorowski would get over 50% of the votes in the first round. Therefore, the result was a surprise. In the second round 51.5% of the voters chose Mr. Duda. Mr. Ko-morowski got 48.5%.

An election for Poland’s parliament will take place in a few months’ time. As Mr. Duda won the presidential election, many now expect his party to win the parliamentary one. If this hap-pens Jaroslaw Kaczynski will proba-bly become prime minister. He is PiS’s leader and a former prime minister. Mr. Kaczynski and his party are often described as eurosceptic. This means that they disagree with many EU rules and regulations. They also dislike the way in which the EU is run.

Presidential elections in Poland are held every five years. A person can only serve two successive five-year terms. Mr. Komorowski won the last election in 2010, so this would have been his second term. Mr. Duda will officially take over as the new president on August 6.

WARM-BLOODED FISH

American marine scientists have discovered that the opah fish is warm-blooded. Until this discov-ery, it was thought that all fish were cold-blooded. The scientists sus-pected that the fish might be unusu-al after studying the tissue around its gills.


Opah are also known as moon-fish or sunfish. They are a large round apartment shape. The larger ones can be over six feet (1.8 me-ters) long. The fish’s fins and tail are a red-orange color. Their bodies are a silver shade of this color. Opah are found in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. They are usually ac-cidently caught by fishermen using nets to catch tuna and other fish.

Mammals and birds are endo-therms, or warm-blooded. Fish, am-phibians and reptiles are cold-blooded, or ectotherms. The word endotherm comes from two Greek words. These mean “within” and “heat”. Ectotherm is “outside” and “heat”.

Warm-blooded animals (such as humans) can control their body tem-perature. They are able to keep it at the same level whether the outside temperature is hot, warm or cold. The body temperature of a healthy person is around 37ºC (98.6ºF). Some food eaten by warm-blooded animals is used to produce heat energy. Most endotherms have some form of insu-lation, such as feathers, fur or layers of fat. These reduce heat loss.

Cold-blooded animals cannot control their body temperature. It depends on the temperature around them. Ectotherms have little insu-lation, so heat can be easily lost or absorbed. It is not unusual to see cold-blooded animals, like lizards and snakes, lying in the sun to warm up. Others may need to hide in the shade or lie in water to cool down.

Being warm-blooded has several advantages. Endotherms are able to survive in a wider range of tempera-tures. Most cold-blooded animals need to avoid temperature extremes. Warm-blooded animals can be ac-tive in all temperatures. Ectotherms become very slow when their sur-roundings get too hot or too cold.

One disadvantage of being warm-blooded is that it takes a lot of energy to keep a steady, or constant, body temperature. Warm-blooded animals need to eat large amounts of food to create extra body heat. Endotherms must therefore always have a good food supply.

Marine scientist with opah fish (NOAA)

Warm-blooded animals have a higher metabolic rate. This is a chemical process that takes place inside all living things. It controls growth, energy production and the removal of waste. Cold-blooded creatures eat a lot less. Their meta-bolic rate is much slower.

The marine scientists noticed that blood vessels around the opah’s gills were unusual. The ones taking blood to the gills (where they pick up oxy-gen) pass right alongside the vessels that take blood away. Blood in these vessels take oxygen around the body. The scientists realized that heat was being exchanged between the vessels. (This is like the design of a car radi-ator.) The heat from warmer blood, going towards the gills, is passed to colder blood coming from the gills. This “design” stops the fish from los-ing too much body heat.

The scientists then looked at the rest of the opah. Big fish undulate their bodies, or move them in a wavelike motion, when swimming. Opah have a different way of swim-ming. They flap the fins on either side of their bodies very quickly. It is this movement, the scientists say, that creates the fish’s body heat. The muscles that do this “flapping” are separated from the water by a thick layer of fat. The heat they create is not lost. The blood takes it to other parts of the fish’s body.

To check that the fish were warm-blooded, the scientists put thermometers inside some of them. These fish were put back in the sea. The thermometers showed that the fish’s body temperature was always about 5ºC (9ºF) warmer than the surrounding water.

The scientists say that by being warm-blooded, opah have an advan-tage over other fish. They feed on squid and krill. These can easily be caught, as the warm-blooded opah can swim much faster. The fish’s eyesight is also very good. What’s more, opah can stay at deep depths (where the water is colder) for lon-ger periods.

EARTH FLAG?

Oskar Pernefeldt is a designer from Sweden. He has created a new flag design. Mr. Pernefeldt calls it “The International Flag of Planet Earth”. He hopes that spaceships, which visit other planets in the Solar System and beyond, in the future, will use the “Earth flag”.

Neil Armstrong (1930 – 2012) was the first man to stand on the Moon in 1969. He was an Ameri-can astronaut. In total 12 astronauts (all Americans) have walked on the


Moon. The last one did so in 1972. These Moon landings were orga-nized by NASA (National Aero-nautics and Space Administration). When they began some people sug-gested that the astronauts should have the flag of the United Nations (U.N.) on their spacesuits. How-ever, as NASA led these missions, the astronauts wore American flags. Armstrong placed an American flag on the Moon’s surface.

Many countries help to build the International Space Station (ISS). It took more than ten years to get all the parts into space and fit them together. The U.S., Russia, Canada, Brazil, and the 11 European Space Agency (ESA) member countries all helped to build the ISS. Most of the work was done by the U.S. and Russia. The ISS goes around the Earth nearly 16 times each day. It circles, or orbits, the planet at a height of roughly 248 miles (400 kilometers). So far, people from 15 countries have visited the ISS. As-tronauts who do space walks at the ISS wear their own countrys’ flag on their spacesuits.

Planet Earth flag design

The next manned space mis-sions are expected to be to Mars. NASA has started to design a spaceship that is expected to carry astronauts to the red plan-et. However, it’s unlikely that only one nation will organize this space mission. Other orga-nizations that will probably be

involved include the ESA and the space agencies from Russia, Chi-na, Japan, and India. Some pri-vate space companies may also take part. Mr. Pernefeldt hopes that his design will eventually become “the flag of the Earth”. If so, it could be taken to Mars.

The flag has seven interlinked, or interlocking, circles. They form a flower shape. Mr. Pernefeldt says that a flower is a good symbol of all life on the Earth. The interlocking rings, he believes, show how every-thing on the planet is connected. The blue represents the oceans, which cover about 70% of the Earth’s sur-face. Blue is also associated with water, which is needed for life.

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are two unmanned spacecraft, or probes. They were launched in 1977. Both are now billions of miles away and either in or near interstellar space. This is “space” outside the So-lar System. If they keep traveling, the space probes could reach other stars in 40,000 years’ time. Mr. Per-nefeldt says that any future space missions of this type could use his Earth flag.

The first manned space mis-sion to Mars is expected to be in the 2030s. The Earth and Mars are not always the same distance from each other. This is because of the

way in which they orbit the Sun. At their closest, the Earth and Mars are roughly 33.5 million miles (54 million kilometers) apart. At their farthest, this distance increases to 249 million miles (401 million ki-lometers).

Astronauts going to Mars will need to travel when the planet is closest to the Earth. This voyage will take about nine months. The astronauts then need to stay on Mars for about 12 months. By then, the two planets will have become closer together again. The return trip is expected to take an-other nine months. Therefore the complete mission will be almost three years long.

Mars

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ISSUE 250 GLOSSARY PUZZLE

INSTRUCTIONS: Complete the crossword. The answers are highlighted in orange in the news stories. There are 25 words highlighted and you need 20 of them to complete the crossword. Once you have solved the crossword go to the word search on the next page

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1 Adjective Describes how easy or difficult it is to do something 6 Adjective Likely to cause arguments 9 Adjective Describes something that can be believed

or relied on 11 Noun A desire or need for food 13 Verb To have brought animals or plants under human

control for transport, food, power or companionship 16 Noun Plural Connections or communications between

people or groups 17 Noun Plural Goods that can be brought, sold or traded 18 Adverb Describes making something using a lot of small

parts or details arranged in a complicated way 19 Noun Part of the body of a living thing that is made of

similar cells 20 Noun The branches and leaves of trees that spread out

and form a type of roof

DOWN

2 Adjective Wasteful and not making the best use of something

3 Noun The person who currently holds a position, job or office

4 Noun A military force raised from civilians 5 Noun The community of living things in an area and the

environment in which they live 7 Noun Plural Natural or artificial enclosed spaces 8 Noun The period of time between one generation and the

next, usually considered to be about 25-30 years 10 Adjective Describes something that is involved with fighting,

usually between two groups of armed forces 12 Verb Continually mistreated somebody or a group of people 14 A standard by which you judge or decide something 15 Noun The physical ability of a person to resist a particular

infection or virus


ISSUE 250GLOSSARY PUZZLE CONTINUED

INSTRUCTIONS: Find 19 of the 20 crossword answers in the word search. Words can go vertically, horizontally, diagonally and back to front. After finding the 19 words write down the 20th (or missing) word under the puzzle.

D P M T E L Q Z W U N O D K T F Z S

U E C O S Y S T E M A R Z N B P W I

G L T P B D D G X T F L E Q D E F D

U A A A P P E T I T E B L W O E M D

R Z W I V L H P E T M Y F V A F G H

X D J B S P W R W U B M W S I E L M

C R I T E R I A C T X Q I Y N P W O

C V K C E P E N Y H G B N E E H A P

J H K O X T I V M P I O R J F L J E

D F A M W S I I O L O A P O F C M R

D B G M G G L T I R T N T F I U V S

E Q V O B I S T E I T W A I C H X E

A T D D T E Y N O P T N T C I K L C

L A S I T D R N H Z P O O B E X V U

I B A T H F F S D L W A Z C N A G T

N M L I X D O M E S T I C A T E D E

G O Y E U X B F E U S S I T Y J Q D

S C R S I M M U N I T Y B V J E W M

MISSING WORD ANSWER =

ISSUE 249 A

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Z M P H E N O M E N O N H S M X S W

C D Y K P R O P E L L E R S X S E N

J E P Y H I O Q U N N G J E B E I W

Z I R S N I B R T S E E Y M V T R S

R F O L A Q O P I V F D O I S N E N

C I P K V J J Y I K G C S I L E G O

F S O S I I O T D Q A S P K M G R I

O R R S G X A C B T E O N D Y O O T

C E T B A I M J A R R K S V T T F N

I V I A T G S C G H Q U U T H I C E

T I O I I M E G T J D S O X O A V V

A D N R O Z A N S E F T I Z L T R N

D I A S N R A C R J R R R P O E P O

E N L X A L R I T O L A O F G D O C

L T N N I I P O A T R T T O Y F D N

E W F H I S L T L C G E O X L G H W

D K P Z N D L S Z U D G N P R N X G

V M U I L A G U R F E Y S O A H Y C

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I M M O R T A L

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