Let's Get 7 in IELTS

How Denmark Sees the World in 2012

A television advert for the iPhone misled consumers, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled.

An Italian priest who said he wanted to hold the world's first beauty contest for nuns has decided to cancel the project, saying he was misunderstood.

15 industrial-design graduate students dream and design big for NASA
“Design for extreme environments” sounds like a new cable show, but it’s actually a class at RISD that focuses on building habitats for truly challenging locations—like the moon. Last fall, NASA asked the students to design a mobile dwelling for its next manned mission to the moon, scheduled for 2020. “NASA wanted a rover that could house four people for two weeks in 24-hour sunlight,” says student Zack Kamen.

One of the biggest obstacles the students faced was how to keep astronauts from tracking lunar dust, which can be as harmful to human lungs as asbestos, into the habitat. The solution was to build airtight “suitlocks” into each habitat. The suitlock designs the RISD students used worked like lunar mudrooms. To leave the habitat, astronauts climb through a hatch and slide their legs directly into a six-foot spacesuit. The astronaut’s life-support pack is mounted on the suitlock door, and when the door closes, the pack snaps into place on the back of his suit. Then the astronauts depressurize the lock and go exploring. “It’s like a holding tank on the exterior of the moon rover, so the suits never actually come inside,” Kamen says.

WHAT’S NEXT: NASA will be using the students’ research to plan its 2020 expedition. “We’re going to have to get together in 2020 and have a big party,” says RISD student Julianne Snow Gauron.

Researchers find that capuchin monkeys love to give
Primate intelligence gives me cognitive dissonance. It’s fascinating that monkeys can recognize numbers, construct tools and even follow to-do lists. But it also bruises my ego, just slightly, knowing that monkeys aren’t that different from my parents, friends or heroes. (Michael Phelps excluded. He’s the übermensch.)

We’ve always been separate from monkeys on one front, though. In countless documentaries about primates, after proving how intelligent monkeys are, the host always caveats it with a final statement: monkeys don’t like to share. Even when they split a banana with a fellow monkey, the reward centers of their brain don’t light up like ours. There you have it—we love altruism, so we’re better than them.

Well, not quite. Earlier this week, scientists from Emory University found that capuchin monkeys take delight in giving to others. They paired the animals with either a relative, non-related acquaintance, or complete stranger, and gave them a choice between two tokens. One of the tokens allowed the monkeys to enjoy an apple slice all to themselves, while the other rewarded both monkeys with the treat. When they were paired with a family member or acquaintance, most of the animals chose the latter. Researchers attributed this to their emphatic nature, and explained that the closer they were to the fellow monkey, the more likely they were to give. Just like us.

Our experts tackle the big questions that keep you up at night
If you started just before the first dinosaurs appeared, you’d probably be finishing your hike just about now.
Here’s how it breaks down: One light-year—the distance light travels in one year, used as the yardstick for interstellar distances—is about 5.9 trillion miles. If you hoofed it at a moderate pace of 20 minutes a mile, it would take you 225 million years to complete your journey (not including stops for meals or the restroom). Even if you hitched a ride on NASA’s Mach 9.68 X-43A hypersonic scramjet, the fastest aircraft in the world, it would take about 95,000 years to cover the distance.
You’ll need to bring a big bag, too; walking such a distance requires substantial supplies. The average adult burns about 80 calories per mile walked, so you’d need two trillion PowerBars to fuel your trip. You’d also produce a heap of worn-out shoes. The typical pair of sneakers will last you 500 miles, so you’d burn through some 11.8 billion pairs of shoes. And all that effort wouldn’t get you very far, astronomically speaking: The closest star to the sun, Proxima Centauri, is 4.22 light-years away.

Lost in drive-by country? Look for a cow. It will probably be pointing north—or south.

After analyzing satellite photos of 8,000 cows in 308 different locations, German scientists have found that the milk-makers usually confront the world in a north-south direction. This preference isn’t an indication of the cows sunning themselves, researchers say—it shows that they can sense the Earth’s magnetic field.

Australia has backed Chinese aluminium giant Chinalco's recent purchase of a 11% stake in Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto.

Dear EarthTalk: I am considering solar panels for my roof to provide heat for my hot water and possibly to do more than that. Are there some kinds of solar panels that are better than others? How do I find a knowledgeable installer? --Elise, Watertown, MA

What type of solar energy capture system you put on your home depends on your needs. If you want to go full tilt and generate usable electricity from your home's rooftop—and even possibly contribute power back to the larger grid—tried and true photovoltaic arrays might be just the ticket. A typical installation involves the panels, which are constructed of many individual silicon-based photovoltaic cells and their support structures, along with an inverter, electrical conduit piping and AC/DC disconnect switches.

The head of the opposition party in the Indian state of West Bengal has called for an indefinite siege of the factory building the world's cheapest car.

Electron microscopes use a beam of electrons to magnify samples by up to 2 million times. But whatever they look at takes a beating, a problem when examining delicate biological specimens.

Similar magnification should be possible using a much lower-energy, gentler beam of helium ions and recording how they are scattered by a sample. But developing a mirrored surface able to effectively reflect and focus helium atoms into a tight beam has proven difficult.