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NEWS UPDATE: As of posting time, a video showing ISS astronauts munching on tasty space lettuce is already available for viewing at https://youtu.be/RqtAK-FBtXU. ![]() A recent video taken inside the International Space Station (ISS) shows a floating taco which an astronaut deftly catches then eats. In all likelihood, the outer space taco was made with dehydrated vegetables from Earth. On Earth, fresh lettuce is often used in taco recipes to add that deliciously crisp and crunchy texture that perfectly blends with all the other ingredients of the famous food. Very soon, astronauts aboard ISS may have fresh, space grown lettuce in their tacos. A small head of red Romaine lettuce will be carefully cleaned with a citric-acid based sanitizing wipes then cut in half. Half of the vegetable will be feasted on by the Expedition 44 crew members while the other half will be packaged, frozen and sent back to earth for scientific analysis. US astronaut Scott Kelly planted the lettuce seed on July 8, 2015 inside a plant growth chamber aptly named "Veggie" developed by Orbital Technologies Corporation (Orbitec). The Veggie unit has a flat panel light bank that includes red, blue and green LEDs for plant growth and crew observation. The red and blue LED lights gave the space grown lettuce its purplish color while green light was added to make it look as close as possible to Earth-grown ones, and yes, look more edible. The in-orbit plant growing experiments being done aboard ISS are aimed at finding a solution to the need for growing plants for food as humans seek to travel farther and longer away from Earth. If scientists will be able to prove that the lettuce is safe to eat, then other vegetables just might soon be grown in outer space as well. When that happens, astronauts won't have to settle for freeze-dried vegetables or open tubes that contain familiar Earth food flavors to satisfy their cravings. ______ Difficult Words: deftly - 巧みに (skillfully); floating- ふわっと(drifting freely due to weightlessness); sanitizing- 消毒 (cleaning to free from dirt or germs); analysis- 解析 (studying the kind of and amount of components, usually the chemicals or nutrients in a material); purplish (having the color of purple 紫の ); edible-食べられる (eatable); orbit- 軌道 (the curved path of a satellite around the Earth, or of planets around the sun); craving- 渇望 (great desire for something, like food, drink or anything, especially one that one has not eaten for a long time); aptly - 旨く (very skillfully or correctly). Source: http://kickerdaily.com/iss-astronauts-set-taste-fresh-space-grown-lettuce/ ![]() Many people born with genetic disorders all over the world tend to avert their eyes or look down because they can't bear to see how others are staring at them-- just because they look different. CNN reporter, Ashley Strickland, writes about how many lives have been changed, thanks to the efforts of a photographer named Rick Guidotti. Guidotti is an accomplished fashion photographer who has worked with the likes of international model Cindy Crawford and has been hired by Revlon and Yves St. Laurent, two of the world's best known brands of beauty products. While he loved photography as an art, Guidotti reached a point where he felt too restricted by the fashion world's definition of beauty-- often represented by slim, Caucasian models with flawless skin and perfectly made up faces. He began researching on genetic disorders and sought people who have them. These days, Guidotti's favorite subjects for his craft are not fashion models but people who are considered different because of their genetic disorders. One of them is Sarah Kanney, whose picture appears above. Sarah was born with Sturge-Weber syndrome, often characterized by facial birthmarks. The photographer with a kind heart has been taking photographs of persons with different genetic disorders. He does not just take pictures of them but shows them how uniquely beautiful they are. In contrast with the pictures shown in medical books which showed people with sad expressions, he sees and captures beauty in the people born with special congenital conditions. He is driven by the desire to help transform the way people see and define beauty. His documentary, "On Beauty," is being shown in New York City and is part of his project, Positive Exposure. The project aims to show positive images of people with genetic difference to show medical students. _______ Difficult words: avert 逸らす( to turn away or aside); staring 見つめ (looking at someone or something for a long time, usually with wide eyes); flawless 完璧な(having no defects, spots or faults); genetic 遺伝子の(refers to inherited traits); syndrome 症候群(a symptom or pattern of behavior that occurs under certain conditions); Caucasian 白人(people whose ancestors were originally from Europe, parts of North America, Western Asia and India who are mostly white), and congenital 先天的(relating to a condition present at birth). For the full CNN report, please refer to the link below: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/05/health/genetic-differences-on-beauty-documentary/index.html?iid=ob_article_organicsidebar_expansion&iref=obnetwork ![]() The American favorite foods, steak and hamburgers, may be delicious but raising the cows for the meat needed to make them contributes to global warming. Huge amounts of methane and carbon dioxide are released into the air from the cows' dung and urine kept in ponds near the cattle farms. The pungent odor coming from the ponds is also a problem among residents in communities where the farms are located. Homestead Dairy in Plymouth, Indiana, USA has found a way to make profits from cow dung and urine. It uses a technology called "biogas recovery system," which can transform animal wastes into electricity. Biogas recovery makes use of an anaerobic digester, a machine set up which is very much like a giant shed that uses heat to speed up decomposition. The set up captures the climate change-causing gases and turns these into electricity. The farm has also turned stench into the "smell of money" since a local utility company pays handsomely for the electricity it now produces that provides power to 1,000 homes. _____ Difficult words: biogas- バイオガス ( any gas released when materials from plants and animals decay); pungent - ぴりっとくる (sharply strong, affecting the taste or smell); dung- 糞 (manure or the solid waste, especially of animals), urine 尿 (liquid waste from animals); transform 変ずる (to change into another form or substance); decomposition 腐敗 (state of being decayed or broken down); stench 腐敗(an offensive smell), anaerobic 嫌気性の (the absence of oxygen), "smell of money" お金の匂い(idiomatic expression that refers to something that brings success and income). ![]() Online teaching can be really challenging. One has to find the right materials to use that would meet the needs of students. Some students find it very difficult to read long news articles while others enjoy reading long yet interesting articles. Our online teaching company provides excellent support to us, tutors, by giving links to relevant websites that provide materials for News In Levels and web news lessons. There are instances, however, when a student would tell me he/she has chosen a topic among the list of available lessons because it's the only one that he/she has not yet studied. Is this good or bad? Reading news about a topic that one is not really interested in often results in the student's lack of response when asked about his reaction to what he/she has read. At the end of the lesson, no matter how hard the teacher tried to make the lesson time enjoyable for the student, (the student was not interested in the article, in the first place) both feel that the lesson did not go well. When students were forced to choose a topic that they are not really interested in yet they thought they had no choice, I would offer to search for another article. It's not a random choice that I make there and then, however. Before each lesson, I try to check the student's lesson history for trends in the topics he/she previously liked to study. I then match the student's interest with a list of articles I have studied and prepared vocabulary words and sample sentences for. The strategy works, most of the time. These past few weeks, however, there has been a dearth in interesting topics. Some titles sound interesting, yes, but sometimes the main story does not match the title. Hence, I've been searching websites for informative, interesting or unique news articles. Then as I was doing research at the University, I accessed the University's journal subscription and found JSTOR Daily-- which has the catch phrase " Where News Meets Its Scholarly Match." (Please check out daily.jstor.org). I've used one of the news in the website and my student was amazed that everything she has read about parenting was almost exactly as she had experienced, herself. To which I replied, "I think, it's because the news was based on the results of real research among real parents and published in a scholarly journal." She thanked me for choosing the topic. Just a word of caution: the articles are not for everybody; advanced students, perhaps but not for beginners. I contacted the JSTOR Daily administrator and asked for permission to rewrite their articles to match the levels of less advanced students. I hope to hear from them soon! DIFFICULT WORDS: dearth (not enough supply); scholarly (concerned with academic learning and research); catch phrase (phrase that is meant to attract attention). |
RinaAn avid reader and writer of News and Feature Articles, she has been constantly searching for interesting articles to use in her online tutorial lessons. Finding most of the available shortened news articles either lacking depth or not interesting enough to keep her students focused on her lessons, she decided to rewrite news stories to render these both meaningful and interesting. ArchivesCategories |