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WorksheetsSummarizing Fiction and Non-Fiction
Total questions: 25
Worksheet time: 1hrs 15mins
Of course, there are still rebels who say that floors are consistently unclean. They think that if food spends any time on the floor it becomes unsafe. Then there are those who are just happy to take their chances. But lately, scientists have been trying to get in on the act.
The biggest story never told in five-second rule headlines is that it does not matter either way. It is true that contamination of food from dirty cooking tools is a leading cause of food poisoning. Using unwashed knives that have cut raw chicken to cut raw vegetables can make people sick. However, good food landing on a fairly clean floor has seldom harmed anyone.
In other words, "YOLO" means life is short so we had better make the most of it. It's something humans seemingly have tried to remind each other since the dawn of time.
Scientists now say it might be more than just a trendy saying. A team of researchers from several universities, including Cambridge and Cal State, say that adopting a "YOLO" lifestyle is good for our brains.
Those involved in the illegal trade of rhino horn are going to ever-greater lengths. That became clear last week at a zoo near Paris, France. During the night, criminals broke into the zoo, shot a white rhino named Vince, and cut off his 8-inch horn with a chainsaw.
The attack marks a shocking development in a crisis that sees more than three rhinos killed every day in their southern African homelands. Demand for rhino horn in Vietnam and China continues to fuel poaching and smuggling. The illegal sales put rhinos at risk of becoming extinct.
Glaciers hold information about the Earth. It dates back to when humans were only just learning to farm.
A glacier is a slow-moving mass of ice. It forms when snow accumulates year after year and is then pushed down into tightly packed ice.
Glaciers can be very old and contain bits of gas, chemicals and dust. Because of this, scientists can study glacier ice in a lab to learn about what the past was like.
The scientists use glacier ice to learn about how it used to rain, about forest fires, about what temperatures used to be like, changes in greenhouse gases and things that pollute the air. The ice provides an important understanding of how our climate is changing.
The story begins in 1532. Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro captured Atahualpa in Peru. Atahualpa, which is pronounced ah-ta-WAL-pah, was the last king of the Inca. The Inca were an ancient people. They controlled the largest empire in South America before Europeans arrived. The Spanish came to South America in search of land and gold. They defeated the people who were already there, like the Inca, and took their land.
Pizarro demanded a room full of gold in exchange for Atahualpa. He could not wait, though, and killed the ruler. Atahualpa's body disappeared. People say his faithful generals hid the treasure they were carrying. Since then, people have been searching Ecuador for the gold.
The average person would probably have trouble telling the difference between a couple of lemurs. It's hard even for scientists who study them.
Now, computers can tell the difference — and they're pretty good at it.Scientists have created software that remembers lemur faces, and it will be used in the forests of Madagascar to identify and track the whereabouts of endangered lemurs.As the BBC reports, the software, known as LemurFaceID, allows scientists to easily track the primates.
When it looks at digital photographs, the software can tell the difference between individual lemurs with greater than 97-percent accuracy. Researchers hope the tool will help with the protection of the species. It could also provide a more humane way to identify individual lemurs without hurting them. The team recently published their work in the journal BioMed Central Zoology.
To track lemurs, scientists traditionally trapped and tagged individual animals.
The new software will give scientists who study lemurs a new tool for tracking them over time.
The police will quickly be able to say if that lemur has been illegally taken from the wild.
Endangered Madagascar lemurs will be tracked by facial recognition software.
