Innehållsförteckning för November 2021 / Issue 26 från News Bites

Feathered Friend Michael Smith, a 55-year-old retired builder from Worcestershire, England, spotted an injured jackdaw chick lying on the roadside back in May. He picked up the tiny bird and took him home. Michael made him a little nest, fed him scrambled eggs and named him Patch. Now recovered, and about six months old, Patch is an excellent flier, but comes back to Michael when he is called. They have become best friends, and Patch even sits on the handlebars of Michael’s bike when he goes cycling. Michael feeds Patch mealworms, and fruit like cherries and grapes, but the healthy bird also catches moths, wasps and flies for himself. Patch lives in an aviary that Michael built in the garden. He also comes in for play dates and sleepovers in…

11 1918 Armistice Day World War I (WWI) began on June 28, 1914, and lasted for 4 years, 3 months and 14 days. 135 countries took part in WWI. It was the first major war where tanks, submarines and aeroplanes were used as weapons. Almost 17 million people lost their lives during the war, including 7 million civilians, and another 20 million were wounded. Nobody expected the war to last so long or imagined the trail of destruction it would leave behind. However, the end did eventually come – at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, when both sides signed the armistice. The ‘Armistice’ (or ‘peace agreement’) was signed in a railway carriage in the Forest of Compiègne, in northern France. There was…

CROSSWORD TIME ACROSS 3 The name of the tallest tree in the world (8) 4 The world’s fastest passenger train, the Shanghai (6) 6 The smallest member of the crow family (7) 8 The giant eland is the largest species of in the world (8) 9 A site known as the Matalascañas Trampled Surface can be found near the southwest coast of this European country (5) 12 The capital city of Brazil (8) 1 4 From basketball and football to swimming and sprinting, to meet the greatest legends in sport. (7) 16 The name of to orbit the Earth (4) 17 Who directed Ghostbusters movies in the 1980s? (4,7) 19 Maker of the EV Supercar Battista (11) 20 Toru Iwatani invented this famous arcade game in 1980 (3,3) DOWN 1…

True Legends of Sport Yao Ming Yao Ming is regarded as one of the greatest Chinese basketballers of all time. He spent nine years with Houston Rockets in the NBA, winning an All Star in eight of those as he became one of the league’s best imports. Born in Shanghai, both of Yao’s parents played basketball and his talent was obvious from an early age. In 1997, he signed for Shanghai Sharks, who play in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), and three years later he represented China at the Olympic Games in Sydney. Standing at 2.29m tall (7 feet 6 inches), Yao towered over his opponents while his amazing performances helped Shanghai win a CBA championship in 2002. Later that year he was selected by the Houston Rockets in the…

COP26: The World is Watching In November 2021, more than 200 world leaders will meet for COP26, to discuss climate change. ‘COP’ stands for ‘Conference of Parties’ - in other words, a meeting that involves groups of people working towards the same goal. And why 26? It will be the 26th meeting of the ‘United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change‘ (UNFCCC). The first meeting was held in 1994, when many world leaders joined the UNFCCC and agreed to combat global warming. Since then, there has been a meeting every year. COP26 is hugely important for the future of the planet. A recent United Nations report showed that the world is warming more quickly than scientists expected. Slashing greenhouse gas emissions by at least half before 2030 is vital to…

Out now on Netflix Rated: PG Starring: Lin-Manuel Miranda as Vivo, Ynairaly Simo as Gabi, Gloria Estefan as Marta Sandoval Directed by: Kirk DeMicco Vivo is out now on Netflix, and it is definitely worth 103 minutes of your time. Starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, of Hamilton and Moana fame, this delightful animation tells the story of Vivo, a kinkajou (honey bear) who spends his days alongside his loving owner Andrés, playing music and entertaining passers-by in a lively Havana square. When Andrés receives a letter from an old friend, Marta Sandoval, he decides the best way to express his true feelings is through the delivery of an old love song. He asks Vivo to deliver it in person (to the other side of the world). When Vivo teams up with the…

Pininfarina Battista Maker: Pininfarina Model: Battista Years: 2019-present Fuel: All-electric Transmission: Automatic Top speed: 400km/h Horsepower: 1,874HP Materials: The Battista is made entirely from carbon fibre and aluminium. 5 FAST FACTS 1. Who says hypercars can’t work with electrical power? The Battista’s 120-Kw battery can last for 482 kilometres of driving. 2. Former Formula 1 driver Nick Heidfeld worked with Pininfarina to test the Battista and to improve its aerodynamics. 3. The Battista’s gearbox is fully automatic, but the driver can choose from five driving modes. Caraterre is the high-performance mode and enables the Battista to hit 100km/h in 1.9 seconds! That’s faster than a Formula 1 racing car. 4. Even as it speeds across the track, the Battista is almost completely silent due to its all-electric engine. However, drivers…

The Giant Eland Bonjour, News Bites readers. I am a giant eland – a species of antelope. There are over 90 different species of antelope in the world, and we are the biggest of them all. A giant of nature I’m a pretty impressive-looking guy, if I say so myself. My shoulder height is 1.7m, I’m almost 3 metres long and I weigh just under a tonne. And then there’s my fantastic spiralled, V-shaped horns, which are over a metre long – how awesome are they? My coat My reddish-brown coat has 12 vertical white stripes. The bridge of my nose is black, and I have a thin line of short black hair all down my neck to the middle of my back. My legs are slender with black and…

A Photographer People Working in the Community A good photographer is a little bit like an artist or a writer. He or she uses a camera to take images that paint a picture or tell a story. Like all good artists, a photographer has to make a visual image that makes people feel something. If you look at a photo and feel happy or sad, or if it makes you excited or even angry, then the photographer has done a good job. And like all good writers, a photographer needs to be able to tell a story with his or her photos. A good photo should make you think and ask questions like ‘What are they doing?’ or ‘Where was that photo taken?’ or ‘Who is that person?’ Sounds interesting?…

Space Movie Magic Many movies are set in fictional space locations. But now a Russian feature movie has actually been filmed in space! A Soyuz spacecraft led by the veteran Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov recently carried a movie crew to the International Space Station. Director Klim Shipenko and actor Yulia Peresild were aboard for several weeks to film scenes for the new movie Challenge. Shkaplerov will also play a part in the movie, along with two other cosmonauts, Pyotr Dubrov and Oleg Novitskiy. In fact, Novitskiy will play the part of a crew member who must be treated for a serious heart problem while in space. Although appearing in a movie was a steep learning curve for the cosmonauts, that was nothing compared to what Shipenko, the director, and Peresild,…

FACT? SCIENCE FACT OR FICTION? OR FICTION? STATEMENT: There are more trees on earth than stars in our galaxy. Would you believe that there are an estimated three trillion trees on earth?! That is a three (not tree) with twelve zeroes after it: 3,000,000,000,000! This total is more than the number of stars in our galaxy (estimated at somewhere around 150-250 billion) and many times more than the number of cells in a human brain (around 100 billon)! That said, there used to be six trillion trees on earth – before humans came along and started cutting them down. This is just one example of how human activity can have a negative impact on the environment. TRUE or FALSE? Trees are able to communicate and defend themselves against attacking insects.…

B is for... BRAZIL Official Name: Federative Republic of Brazil Population: 210,867,954 Capital: Brasilia Area: 8.516 million km2 Major Cities: Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro, Salvador Official Language: Portuguese Money: Brazilian Real Brazil is a huge country – the fifth largest in the world and the biggest in South America. Its Atlantic coastline is over 7,400 km long and it has world-famous beaches like Copacabana in the heart of Rio de Janeiro, Baia do Sancho and Jericoacoara. The Amazon river and the world’s biggest rainforest (which uses the same name) are in the north of Brazil. Here too is the highest-lying area of the country, called the Guiana Highlands. The Brazilian Plateau (high, flat land) is in the eastern, southern and central parts of the country. There are also dry…

Fantastic Feats of Engineering #26 The Panama Canal The Panama Canal is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. It was built to cut down on the cost, distance and time it took ships to carry their cargo between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Before the Panama Canal was built, ships had to go around the continent of South America. Using the Panama Canal, a ship sailing from San Francisco to New York would travel almost 13,000km less and get there much sooner. In 1881, the French began digging a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, but they were forced to give up because of the difficult conditions. Thousands of workers died from diseases and accidents. The US government began building the canal in 1904. There were more…

Part 3: The Renaissance During the Middle Ages in Europe (AD 464 to c.1350), there was no major breakthrough in astronomy. About a thousand years before, the brilliant Greek astronomer Aristarchus had realised that the Sun was the centre of the universe, and that the Earth was a sphere that revolved around it once a year and rotated once a day. But other astronomers couldn’t believe this. How could the Earth be moving and spinning? Everything would fly off its surface! As for the common people, they simply believed that the Earth and the stars were suspended in space by the power of God. No other explanation was needed. Then the Renaissance began in Florence, Italy, and spread all over Europe. ‘Renaissance’ means ‘re-birth’ and what was reborn was the…

The Wacky World of Sport Have You Tried … Wife Carrying? Would you try this wacky sport? This rather wacky sport dates all the way back to the 1800s, but it has only become a serious sport in recent decades. In more recent years, wife carrying has become well known as a novelty sport, but try telling that to the competitors. Many take it very seriously and often spend months training before big tournaments, such as the annual Wife Carrying World Championships. The sport involves an obstacle course, often with fences and a water hazard, spread over 250m. Even though the name of the sport is ‘Wife Carrying’, competitors do not have to be married. In fact, the rules specifically state that you can carry your neighbour instead. As long…

The Premier League 100 club A number of weeks ago, Mohamed Salah wrote himself into history by becoming the fastest Liverpool player to score 100 league goals for the club. The Egypt star reached his Premier League century in the Reds’ 3-3 draw with Brentford at the end of September. Earlier that month Salah became the 30th player to score a total of 100 goals since the first Premier League season in 1992 (on top of his Liverpool record, he also scored two goals during an unsuccessful spell at Chelsea). He finds himself in some esteemed company, joining past and present Premier League stars in the 100 club. But he still has some way to go before he breaks into the top 10... 1 Alan Shearer 260 goals in 441…