RP300 Don't Believe Everything You Read on the Internet

 RP300 Don't Believe Everything You Read on the Internet

The Internet is free, open, far-reaching, and available to everyone. Its invention represented a new era for sharing information. Yet these strengths can also be weaknesses. From the very beginning, some people used the Internet to spread lies and misinformation. More recently, they have been getting pretty good at it. Welcome to the era of "fake news."

A fake news story has three key ingredients. The first one is the most straightforward— the news is simply false. Maybe it's one little fact, or maybe the whole story is a work of fiction. But something in there is not true. After all, fake news is called "fake" for a reason.

The second ingredient is where things get tricky. Fake news stories are always made to resemble the real thing. The story might appear on a website that looks and sounds very official. It might also look like people are talking about the story a lot on social media. But in reality, these people aren't people at all. They' re often just bots that are sharing a fake news story to make it look real.

The third ingredient of fake news is that there's an agenda behind it. Real news is just news— it's something that happens. Fake news is a weapon. Someone out there is spreading it with a goal in mind. This goal might be political, like using fake news to hurt certain politicians or political parties. It could also be financial, like using fake news to make money. But make no mistake: there's a reason behind every fake news story.

Fake news is everywhere on the Internet these days. Companies like Facebook and Google don't want to get involved with deciding what is "real." As a result, many people can't identify fake news when it shows up in their social media. That means you must always be alert, and question what you read on the Internet!

RP299 What Are We Breathing, Anyway

 RP299 What Are We Breathing, Anyway?

Most people take breathable air for granted, but that's changing fast. The greenhouse effect, global warming, and the thinning of Earth's ozone layer are problems we all share. And they're all caused by polluted air.

Fuming smokestacks are usually the first thing "air pollution" brings to mind. Factories are indeed big polluters, but there are many others. Landfills give off methane, which not only replaces oxygen in the atmosphere but raises temperatures by absorbing heat. Cars emit poisonous carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Paint, varnish, and hair spray all contain harmful gases. Older household appliances release chlorofluorocarbons, which damage the ozone layer. And fires and incinerators of all sorts produce toxic smoke.

When pollution reaches the air it often forms smog, the thick dirty fog that fills many cities, especially those surrounded by mountains. Los Angeles in the United States and Santiago in Chile are both famous for their smog. Chemicals combine to form dangerous compounds. Sometimes particles of pollution mix with water in the air to form acid rain, which kills plants and animals, damages property, and harms people.

Long-term exposure to polluted air causes asthma, lung cancer, heart disease, and other serious health problems. But air pollution can also act very quickly. In 1984, an estimated 15,000 people were killed and up to 600,000 injured in a single night when gases leaked from a pesticide factory in Bhopal, India. The Great Smog of 1952 killed roughly 12,000 Londoners in just four days before suddenly disappearing.

Air pollution's consequences are obvious, and governments are beginning to respond with laws and regulations. Many major polluters, however, are wealthy and influential people and corporations. Our lives may soon depend on making sure they can no longer buy their way out of their environmental responsibilities.

RP298 Out for a Spinner

 RP298 Out for a Spinner

Do you shake your foot all the time? Do you have trouble sitting still? Are you sick and tired of fidgeting? Or maybe you' re just really bored? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then you might just need a fidget spinner.

Fidget spinners are half fun toy, and half relaxation tool. They consist of two key parts. On the outside, there's a disk that usually has three prongs. In the center, there's a ball bearing and a little section you can hold onto. Users will spin the outer disk while holding onto the ball bearing. Just one flick of the wrist will have the fidget spinner spinning for a very long time. This is because of the ball bearing inside: there's low friction in a rolling motion. In other words, the inner parts rub against each other only slightly, allowing for longer spins.

The appeal of fidget spinners as a fun little toy is obvious. Just hold it in your hand, flick your wrist, and watch it spin. There are even various tricks that can be done with a fidget spinner. One such trick is the "change-up." That's when you pass a fidget spinner that's already spinning from one hand to another. These tricks are so popular that fidget spinners have developed their own Internet subculture. Thousands of fans are posting their favorite new tricks to YouTube every day.

Then there's the "fidget "aspect of fidget spinners. They' re not just toys; they can be used as stress-reduction tools as well. Some people find that spinning helps them relax and concentrate better. Some experts have even suggested that fidget spinners could be used to treat behavior disorders like ADHD. These potential benefits have adults picking up fidget spinners to try them for themselves. It doesn't matter if you' re young or old— everyone's going for a spin!

RP297 The AmishRP297 The Amish

 RP297 The Amish

If you ever find yourself driving through Lancaster, Pennsylvania, you may pass a black buggy drawn by a black horse. Inside you'll see a man in old-fashioned clothes, suspenders, and maybe a hat. There may be a woman in a blue and black dress and a bonnet. They' re Amish—living in the modern world but ignoring it.

The Amish do the same chores we do: cook, clean dishes, and do laundry. They go to work, go to church, get married, and raise children. But the Amish live as though most 20th-century technology didn't exist. They work their fields with horses instead of tractors. They wash their clothes with an old-fashioned wringer rather than a washing machine. Though specific practices vary, in general the Amish avoid the modern world, including movie theaters, electricity, cameras, modern clothes, and even higher education.

This is because the Amish value the community more than the individual. They believe they should rely upon their entire community, so when an Amish man needs to build a new barn or house, he doesn't hire a firm with expensive equipment. Instead, he asks all his neighbors to help him, and they do. Amish lifestyles reflect their rejection of individual pride and their admiration of humility and calmness. The Amish reject much of the modern world because it could lead to vanity and pride: colorful clothes, photographs, even zippers! To be plain is to be beautiful in the eyes of God, according to the Amish.

There are Amish communities across the USA and in Canada. All Amish are Christian, and all can trace their roots back to European Anabaptists. They' re named after Jacob Amman, a preacher who united them in the late 1600s. Though their beliefs may differ slightly from place to place, all Amish communities organize their lives around their faith and not the high-tech, modern world that governs the rest of us.

RP296 Luge

 RP296 Luge

If you ever need to get down an icy hill as fast as possible, a luge might be a good choice. If, however, you want to get down that hill without being scared out of your mind and exposed to great danger, you might want to stick to safer options.

Luge is one of the most dangerous winter sports. Luge athletes whip around an icy track at 90 to 160 kilometers per hour. On top of that, they do it all lying flat on their backs, exposed to the elements, inches from the hard ice floor, with nothing to protect them but a helmet.

Luge is the name of the sled and the sport of riding it down a hill. A luge is a one/ two-person sled that the athletes lie in on their backs. The sliders keep as flat as possible and steer the luge mostly with their feet, though there are handles as well. They can race either on natural or artificial tracks. Natural tracks are long and nearly flat, with no artificially banked curves. Artificial tracks are very different. They' re steeper and full of high banked curves. They' re also faster and much more dangerous. Luge athletes face very serious injuries if they make a mistake, and there have been a number of fatal accidents in luge. The most recent high-profile accident happened at a training run during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler, Canada, in which an athlete from Georgia died after losing control of his sled.

Like many other sledding sports, luge was developed in St. Moritz, Switzerland. It began in the mid-19th century when tourists at the spa town began using delivery boys' sleds for fun. By 1883, sliders were organizing meetings. In 1964, luge was accepted as an Olympic sport. The rest, as they say, is (very fast-moving) history.

RP295 The Most Social Animals

 RP295 The Most Social Animals

Human beings aren't the only animals to form social groups. Around the world, other animals live according to complex social orders.

Meerkats are small mammals that share almost everything. They live in colonies of 20 to 30, in which the lives of all the members are connected. Meerkats share duties, taking turns to search for food and guard the home. A meerkat that is on guard will bark to alert the others of danger. It will be the first to leave the den to check to see if danger has left. Though usually only one pair at a time will mate, other members of the colony will babysit and teach the pups. Meerkats have learned to survive against fierce predators by working together.

Killer whales, on the other hand, are fierce predators that work together. Killer whales live in families which can group together to form pods. Pod members communicate with clicks, calls, and other vocalizations. Each pod has its own dialect of sounds, which are taught to calves after they are born. Adults also teach calves how to hunt by weakening seals and allowing the calves to chase them. Adults and calves also practice other skills. Like meerkats, orcas share the duty of caring for the calves of the pod, even disciplining calves that aren't their own.

Bonobos, also called dwarf chimpanzees, are one of our closest relatives and exhibit many human emotions. Social status is very important to them. Females generally have higher status than males, and mother bonobos will try to pass social status on to their sons to protect them. Mother-son bonds last for a lifetime. Bonobos will attack intruders on their territory, and groups of males sometimes patrol for these threats, protecting their groups.

Human societies may be larger, more technologically advanced, and stronger. However, we are definitely not the only creatures that rely on communities to survive.

RP294 Metamaterial

 RP294 Metamaterial

It's not only fantasy authors who are interested in invisibility. Real scientists are fascinated by the idea, too. And lately, instead of being dismissed as impossible, some researchers are saying, “Invisibility cloaks? Hmmm, maybe...”

The key is metamaterial. Metamaterials are man-made structures that bend light in very different ways than natural structures or materials do. When a beam of light hits a natural material—water, for example—The angle of the light changes somewhat, but the overall direction remains the same. When light hits some metamaterials, however, it actually changes direction and points backward. This bounce-back effect can trick our eyes into thinking we don't see anything. Because of the way they affect light, metamaterials are also called backward wave media, left-handed media, and other names.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, first showed that they could manipulate light this way in 2000. They created a new kind of material that had properties never seen in nature. One of them was this ability to reverse light. Since then, researchers have been working on repeating those results with different, more flexible materials and for different types of light. In July, 2010, Elena Semouchkina of the University of Michigan presented an invisibility device made of a type of modified glass. Semouchkina's device bends light around an object, hiding it.

In November of 2010 there was another breakthrough. Researchers at Saint Andrews University made a flexible metamaterial that can bend some light wavelengths, including the wavelength we see as the color red. Though their samples are only millimeters long, their creators are confident that they can make bigger ones.

The words “hiding,” “disguise” and “out of sight” may soon have a whole new meaning.