RP350 Towering Beauties

 RP350 Towering Beauties

Yangshuo County in China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has some truly unique rock formations that make for some of the most interesting geography in the world.
Located in Southeast China, Yangshuo is home to extremely picturesque natural scenery. Its landscape is teeming with unique rock formations that are called karsts. These rocks protrude out of the earth in a big way. They look like stone pillars that have grown to be massive just like a tree might. Strangely enough, the two ingredients for this peculiar geography are extremely simple: water and time.
It took a long time for Yangshuo to inherit its unique geography. Millions of years ago, the Guilin area used to be a gulf. This meant that Guilin's hills were submerged underwater. This water slowly eroded them and fashioned them into pillar shapes. After the water receded, wind and rain continued to eat away at them and contribute to Yangshuo's unique look. Ultimately, the rock formations that we see today in Yangshuo County were tens of millions of years in the making!
There are a few particularly notable karst formations within Yangshuo County. The first of them is called Nine Horse Mural Hill. This landmark is a giant stone cliff that faces the Li River. It got its name from the fact that some people can see nine horses in various poses in the rock patterns. Sunshine reflecting off the cliff face has been known to dazzle spectators with a rainbow of many colors. These colors also change depending on the weather and the time of day.
Elephant Trunk Hill is another famous karst formation in Yangshuo County. It is a limestone arch at the junction of the Li and Taohuajiang rivers. The arch looks like an elephant that has come to drink from the river. Under the arch, there is a crescent-shaped pool that looks like a moon when light strikes it from a certain angle.
While Yangshuo has some of the world's most exquisite karst formations, there are several other worldwide spots that share similar geography. Ha Long Bay in Vietnam and Gunung Mulu in Malaysia are two other popular examples of karst formations that have been dazzling human eyes for thousands of years.

RP349 An Oil to Go Nuts for

 RP349 An Oil to Go Nuts for

Whether in a newspaper or a magazine, you've probably heard of coconut oil. It's a new health craze that's catching on around the world.
Doctors have found that coconut oil is high in healthy fatty acids that are easily digested. Energy from these acids is less likely to be converted into fat. It's also energy that is easily burned when exercising. But the benefits of coconut oil don't stop there—not even close! Studies have revealed the various ways in which coconut oil improves overall health. For one, coconut oil is high in natural saturated fats. These fats increase healthy cholesterol, which prevents heart disease and high blood pressure. Coconut oil is also rich in antioxidants that help reduce inflammation. People who suffer from arthritis and other inflammatory diseases sometimes report reduced swelling and pain. Coconut oil is also believed to help prevent some types of cancer.
As if that's not enough, coconut oil can also benefit your everyday life. Studies have shown that coconut oil can improve memory function in older people. It can also increase metabolism, which leads to better energy and endurance. It even restores skin and leaves it looking younger. No wonder they call coconut oil a superfood: it's creating super-people!
Of course, not everyone agrees on the subject of coconut oil. There are a few doctors and scientists who haven't seen the light yet. For example, the American Heart Association claims that coconut oil is a "troubling" source of saturated fat. Others say that the benefits of coconut oil have been exaggerated, and that more research is needed. Then there are journalists who believe that the coconut oil trend is hurting farmers worldwide.
In reality, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Coconut oil has been proven to have some incredible health benefits. But like anything else in life, it's possible to have too much of a good thing.

RP348 Learn to Fight like an Israeli

 RP348 Learn to Fight like an Israeli

The story of Krav Maga is right out of a Hollywood movie. It begins with a man who grew up in desperate times. His name was Emrich "Imi" Lichtenfeld. Imi was a martial artist, boxer, and acrobat. He was also Jewish, which was very dangerous in 1930s Czechoslovakia. Facing violent threats over his religion, Imi decided to do something about it. He got together with other Jewish boxers and started working on a way to defend their people. The goal was to strip the "art" away from martial art. They wanted to create a fighting style that was practical, effective, and easily taught to others. Their style came to be known as Krav Maga.
Imi's story doesn't end there. After the Nazis invaded in 1940, he fled from Czechoslovakia. He reached Palestine in 1942, and set about training locals in self-defense. His talents were recognized immediately, and he was hired to train military and police forces. After the state of Israel was formed in 1948, he became the army's chief instructor. Imi spent over 20 years in the role, and his legacy is evident. Krav Maga is now the official martial art of the Israel Defense Forces.
Krav Maga is practical above all. Imi drew heavily from other martial arts when developing it, but he only took techniques that were efficient and easy to understand. Therefore, everything in Krav Maga is useful in an actual fight. It teaches how to defend against weapons like knives and guns. It shows how to turn any household object into a weapon. It also puts a premium on swift strikes that can take an attacker out of commission. A Krav Maga fighter will always target vulnerable spots like the eyes, neck, face, or knee.
Krav Maga is also a fighting style that anyone can learn. Imi wanted to develop something that wasn't complicated and easy to learn. Men, women, and children of all ages and body types can train in Krav Maga, but that doesn't mean the training will be easy!

RP347 The Eyes Have It

 RP347 The Eyes Have It!

If you've ever tried to read or watch something on a smartphone in bright sunlight, you know it's not easy. People usually need shade to see screens clearly, especially small screens. And if the sun is right overhead, your eyes can get a nasty blast of glare. Then you won't be seeing anything for a minute or two!
That's all changing right now, however, thanks to moths. Yes, moths. Taking inspiration from these nocturnal insects, scientists in China and the United States have found a solution to midday glare.
The technology that enables people to watch TV on the street in daylight is actually based on what allows moths to see at night. Microscopic structures on moths' eyes let light in but don't reflect it back out. For the insects, this has a double benefit, enabling them to see in darkness while making them less visible to predators. But when similar tiny structures are pressed into a thin, flexible film, they trap sunlight and thereby prevent glare. This means that surfaces coated with such film can be clearly seen even under bright skies.
“Moth eye” film was originally developed for use on solar energy panels, which are more efficient when they' re non-reflective. Now, however, it's ready to take on a variety of new uses. In addition to smartphone screens, windowpanes, road signs, watches, speedometers, and fuel gauges could all be improved by this inexpensive material. Researchers claim that “moth eye” film offers 10 times better readability in clear weather and five times better even in direct sunlight. Since it's self-cleaning, dirt, dust, and fingerprints won't be problems anymore either.
Perhaps the best thing about “moth eye” film is that you won't have to buy a new scooter or phone to get it. It can be stuck onto the surfaces of old gadgets like any screen protector. In the future, however, it may become part of the manufacturing process and already be on products when you buy them.
So the next time you see a moth, be sure to thank it for giving us humans a very helpful idea!

346 A Beautiful Menace Under the Ice

 346 A Beautiful Menace Under the Ice

While exploring the Canadian north, photographer Paul Zizka came across a wonderful sight. It wasn't the snow-capped mountains, the pine trees, or the tranquil lakes. Rather it was some bubbles that caught Paul's eye. These bubbles were visible just under the icy surface of a lake. There were hundreds of them, all frozen in place. They looked like strange sea creatures, maybe even alien life.
What the photographer had discovered is actually a gas called methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that's far more powerful than carbon dioxide. By some estimates, it's 25 times more powerful. It's also highly flammable and can explode when released. Methane bubbles are formed by bacteria at the bottom of lakes. These bacteria consume plant matter and releases methane as part of their digestion process. You might say it's a bacterium's way of farting. In warmer weather, these methane bubbles float to the surface and are released into the atmosphere. But when the water is frozen, the bubbles get trapped in the ice.
But methane bubbles are far more than just a pretty picture. In actual fact, they' re a serious threat to all of us. Methane is a gas that contributes to global warming. Some parts of the planet are frozen all year round. It's called "permafrost." As the planet heats up, this permafrost melts, releasing methane bubbles from lakes and rivers. The release of this methane causes more global warming, which melts more frozen lakes and rivers. The process is called a "feedback cycle," because the effect contributes to the cause. According to one scientist, frozen methane is a climate time bomb waiting to go off.
The methane feedback cycle is yet another reason why the fight against global warming is so important. We all must do our part to solve the problem. This could mean planting a tree or even just walking to school or work every day. Doing so will help preserve the natural beauty of these frozen bubbles. It will also help save the entire planet. Let's keep these dangerous bacteria farts where they belong: safely under the ice!

RP345 Profit for a Cause

 RP345 Profit for a Cause

Can capitalism be a force for good in matters of the environment and social justice? This is the question at the heart of the social enterprise movement. If you were to ask any social entrepreneur who's working hard to start their own business, they would surely say "yes."
In some ways, a social enterprise is exactly like a regular enterprise. It provides a product or service, employs workers, and aims to make a profit. But there is one major difference: a social enterprise is striving to make the world a better place. You might be thinking: "Doesn't every enterprise want to make the world a better place? Corporations like Apple donate millions of dollars to charity. "That's true, and it touches upon the central debate in the social enterprise movement.
There's a lot of disagreement over what exactly constitutes a social enterprise. To some people, it's an enterprise that invests all of its profit into social welfare. Think of a thrift store that takes its profits and funds a local food bank. This is the "purest" interpretation, but it still raises a few difficult questions. For example, should the thrift store expand and open new locations? Doing so might save more people from hunger. Yet the more money it devotes to expansion, the more it looks like a regular corporation.
Others define social enterprise as a corporation whose goal is to provide social or environmental benefits. An example of this would be a factory that converts dangerous waste into a useful product. The factory operates like any other corporation, but it just so happens to be benefiting the local population. Another interpretation of social enterprise is one that hires vulnerable people who struggle in the mainstream economy. An example of this is the Children Are Us Foundation in China. This foundation runs bakeries staffed by mentally challenged young adults.
With all this disagreement, it's almost like anything can be a social enterprise. But what we're really doing here is just putting a new name on an old phenomenon. Social enterprises have been around for thousands of years. In the past, it was simply called neighbors helping out neighbors. You might even say that "social enterprise" is as old as human generosity.

RP344 Say It With Your Fingers Carefully

 RP344 Say It With Your Fingers—Carefully

Being in a place where you can't speak the local language can be frustrating. It's only natural in such situations to attempt to communicate through body language. Hand gestures are indeed universal, but their meanings vary as much as speech from place to place.
Take the gesture made by pressing the tips of your thumb and forefinger together while extending your other fingers. In the West, this is instantly recognized as meaning "okay." In Brazil, it is instantly recognized as an insult. In some East Asian countries, it means money. Just imagine the potential misunderstandings!
Trying to call someone over to you can be just as confusing, depending on where you are. Westerners do it with a hooked forefinger and a raised palm. Asians, on the other… uh, hand, find this rude, as they consider it suitable only for calling dogs. To summon another person, they turn the palm down and wave all four fingers pressed together. This is exactly how Western people tell someone to go away!
One hand gesture that does translate is a raised middle finger with the back of the hand facing outward. Considered extremely offensive, this is the American version of a gesture to which the British add a raised forefinger, forming a V. By turning his palm outward, however, the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made this a victory sign during World War II. Twenty-five years later, American hippies used the same gesture to symbolize their wish for peace during the Vietnam War. Nowadays, Vietnamese and other East Asians flash "peace fingers" automatically anytime they have their pictures taken. Confused yet?
Even the simplest hand gestures can cause cross-cultural problems. In the West, a thumb up has a positive meaning and a thumb down a negative one. In the Middle East, a thumb up has a negative meaning and a thumb down has no meaning at all. Might this be part of the reason for the seemingly endless trouble between these two societies?
Body language may be an instinctive option when we can't communicate verbally, but it can also be very hazardous. My advice? The next time you travel abroad, take a phrase book!
East Asians make the "V" gesture when they have their pictures taken.

RP343 Walking on the Moon

 RP343 Walking on the Moon

Cappadocia has a landscape unlike anything you've seen before. Located in central Turkey, this region is famous for its natural rock formations. Some visitors say that visiting Cappadocia is like visiting the moon.
How did Cappadocia become so exceptional? Both nature and humanity had a hand in it. Take the "fairy chimneys" that the region is famous for. These are pillars of rock that have been eroded by thousands of years of wind and rain. They can stand as high as 40 meters tall. Some of them have a cone of harder rock at the top. It can look a bit like a hat sometimes. This cone takes longer to erode than the softer rock underneath.
Now, here's where humanity comes into the picture. The region of Cappadocia was located on the ancient Silk Road. For thousands of years, traders and soldiers from Europe and Asia passed through the area. Some decided to put down roots, and since Cappadocia's landscape is desert-like, without any trees, they faced a housing problem. To solve it, settlers picked up shovels and started digging. They dug into the larger fairy chimneys and built a complex system of caves to live in. Their work left the region's rock formations dotted with holes. The end result is a landscape that's truly jaw-dropping.
Fast-forward to the present, and some of these caves have been converted into hotel suites. Any visitor can try that "cave experience," and live like the settlers did thousands of years ago. But there's one important difference: now you can have a mattress, a pillow, and a blanket!
One of the best ways to discover these natural wonders is to take a hot air balloon ride. Balloon ride operators are common throughout Cappadocia. Tourists can take a 1-2 hour ride and soak in the sights from high in the sky.
Balloon ride operators are common throughout Cappadocia.
These tours can be very fancy. Some even offer buffets and champagne toasts. If you want something more private, there are tours focusing on special occasions like honeymoons or marriage proposals. Wouldn't it be romantic to have such a great surprise up in the air!

RP342 A Method in the Madness

 RP342 A Method in the Madness

Clocks melt like cheese on a hot summer's day, elephants with matchstick-thin legs carry pyramid-shaped monuments on their backs, floating rhinoceros horns form a figure staring out to sea—images like these, pulled from the irrational corners of the mind, were the mysterious subjects of Salvador Dalí.
With his unique dress sense, curled mustache, and eyes wide open as if constantly startled, Salvador Dalí lived his artistic ideas as well as painted them. He presented a lecture while wearing a deep-sea diving suit (including the helmet), resulting in his audience hearing only muffled sounds from within. He invited an art critic to pose while he himself took photos. The camera, however, had no film inside. He designed bizarre art objects like the famous Lobster Telephone. Why, he questioned, was he never given a boiled telephone when he asked for a lobster in a restaurant?
The reason behind Dalí's strange behavior was that he considered himself the physical representation of the surrealist movement. “I myself am surrealism,” he declared as he was being expelled from the surrealist group.
Dalí's version of surrealism involved finding links between things which the rational mind usually would not connect. To do this he used a technique he called the paranoiac-critical method. By inducing a state of extreme distrust and fear of the world around him, objects would take on new forms and become unstuck from their place in the rational world. The method can be compared to how to see different shapes in clouds, or faces in rocks, and allowed Dalí to create what he referred to as “hand-painted dream photographs,” a reflection of his inner mind.
Born in 1904 in northeastern Spain, Dalí's artistic talents were encouraged by his mother, and he studied art in Madrid. He was an extremely talented technical drawer, a skill that would be used to great effect in his paintings, which often used complex geometry and visual illusions.
Dalí's works explore both the ridiculous and terrifying aspects of the illogical. Some people called him insane, but Dalí simply replied, “There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is insane. I know I am mad.”

RP341 The End of Ink

 RP341 The End of Ink?

Suppose you had only a single math notebook for your entire school career, or could take yesterday's paper to a shop each morning and have it reprinted with today's news. Thanks to light-printable paper, such things might be possible very soon!
After years of effort, researchers in the United States and China have developed a remarkable chemical compound. When applied to ordinary paper, this compound makes the paper printable by ultraviolet (UV) light rather than ink. It looks and feels like any paper, but only keeps its text for 5 to 10 days. If you don't need the text for that long, heating the paper will erase it in 10 minutes. Either way, it can be printed on over 80 times with no loss of quality!
The benefits of such an invention are obvious. Newspapers, magazines, posters, notebooks, and supermarket product life labels are just a few of the many temporary information sources we use. Wouldn't it be great if we could keep on using them over and over again?
Then there are the environmental advantages. Paper production is a major source of pollution, and even recycling paper pollutes due to its ink removal process. In some countries, one third of all trees cut down are used for paper and cardboard. And where does all that paper end up? Mostly in landfills, where it accounts for 40 percent of dumped trash. The more we learn about reprintable paper, the more reason there is to love it!
For now, however, widespread use of this new technology is still just a dream. Although reprintable paper only costs about as much as ordinary paper, laser printers which can print it quickly don't exist yet. And since a blue pigment is one component of the light-printable compound, most UV printing is still either blue on white or white on blue. This means that only text and drawings can currently be reproduced using this method.
Nevertheless, UV printing is an exciting new development which we should all keep an eye on. Who knows? One day there might be an edition of this book which you can have reprinted after you've finished reading it!

RP340 The Adventure of Books

 RP340 The Adventure of Books

There is nothing a bookworm loves more than getting absorbed into the world of an engaging novel. In the near future, however, the humble paper-and-ink book is set to take a dive headfirst into the new and exciting dimension of interactive reading.
What if there was a way in which you could receive an email from the main character? What if actually visiting one of the places mentioned in the story opened up a whole new chapter? Suppose performing certain tasks in real life revealed new secret plot lines in the story. Imagine becoming truly involved with the story's narrative by adding to the story yourself. These are just some of the features that are available to the readers of interactive books right now. In addition, readers can even download interactive story apps onto their phones.
Even though this sounds revolutionary, in fact, readers have been getting involved with plot lines for almost half a century. Choose Your Own Adventure books began to be published in the 1970s. The reader was given a choice at the end of every few pages. For example, the sentence—“If you would like to question the gardener, turn to page 23”—was written to give the reader the option of where the story went next. Each choice would eventually lead the reader to one of around 40 different endings.
Video games have also made use of interactive fiction. Text adventure games were some of the first computer games ever made. Players simply had to input commands such as "open the mailbox" or "leave the house" in order to advance the plot.
A variation on text adventure games that are very popular in Japan is the visual novel. These kinds of games use still manga images, have background music, and usually involve very little game play. Occasionally, readers are expected to make a choice between plot strands, but otherwise the experience is all about the story. Most PC games now sold in Japan are visual novels.
Whatever ends up becoming the future of books, be it on paper or on screen, it seems readers will never tire of finding new ways to get drawn into a juicy plot.

RP339 From Seljlandsfoss with Love

 RP339 From Seljlandsfoss with Love

Dear John,
I know that I already wrote you about my trip to Reykjavik yesterday, and I don't want to be irritating, but I need to tell someone about the most beautiful thing I' ve ever seen.
It's called Seljlandsfoss, but don't ask me how to pronounce it. It's a waterfall located about 150 km from Reykjavik on the south coast of Iceland. The falls are a truly awesome sight. I couldn't take my eyes off them for a full two hours. I was so fascinated that I didn't hear the bus driver screaming his head off at me from the parking lot. Apparently, I made the whole tour wait an extra half hour! It's not the magnitude of Seljlandsfoss that makes it so impressive. Though the falls are 60 meters tall, which is not bad considering the Niagara Falls measure in at 51 meters, the Seljlandsfoss falls are not very wide at all.
Picture yourself standing under a gray sky that goes on forever. Rising up to meet the grayness is a rolling landscape of lush green. It's unlike anything you've seen before because there isn't a tree in sight. Even the sensation under your shoes is foreign to you. That's not grass or dirt that you' re standing on— it's moss. In front of you stands a massive stone cliff. It makes you feel uncomfortable, like you' re looking at the earth's exposed skeleton, and it's something you' re not supposed to see. Yet beautiful water flows over the top in a never-ending stream. As the water descends, it's transformed into a fine mist by the wind you feel blowing through your hair. For a split second, you close your eyes and become the waterfall.
That's pretty profound, don't you think? It looks like I've become a bit poetic after staring at a waterfall for two hours. Anyway, it's also possible to walk on a little mountain path that goes behind Seljlandsfoss. It's rare that we get the opportunity to see a waterfall from two different sides.
I know that you' re planning on coming to Iceland next year. Make sure that you add Seljlandsfoss to your plans. It is truly one of the most beautiful things in the world

Yours,

Jenny

RP338 Becoming the Sculpture

 RP338 Becoming the Sculpture

We use art to convey our thoughts, opinions, and experiences. It's something that can help us reach out and form bonds with our fellow human beings. But why should art be limited to a canvas, book, or film reel? Why can't it cover four walls and a ceiling, or expand to the size of a building? Well, with installation art, it can.
Installation art was born out of the conceptual art movement of the 1970s. Conceptual art is the belief that the ideas associated with a piece of art are more important than the aesthetic or how it looks. A good piece of conceptual art will make us think. It won't necessarily stun us with its beauty.
Think of installation art as taking the concept of sculpture and turning it inside out. Usually, when we examine a sculpture, we are on the outside looking in. However, in the case of installation art, the art piece is all around us. In a sense, we become the sculpture.
Sunflower Seeds is a great example of installation art. It involved the artist spreading millions of porcelain sunflower seeds across the floor of London's Tate Modern. Each unique seed was hand-painted in a small workshop in China. The overall aesthetic contrasts the quaintness of being painted by hand with the harsh industrial environment of the Tate Modern, which was formerly a power station.
Néle Azevedo is another renowned installation artist. She travels around the world creating hundreds of miniature ice sculptures of people. Of course, it's inevitable that her creations will melt as soon as temperatures warm up, but that's exactly the point. Néle molds her melting men to raise awareness about the threat of global warming.
Minimum Monument by Néle Azevedo
There are lots of other installation artists out there trying to pull us into the sculpture. Patrick Dougherty uses sticks and twigs to build huge houses, huts, monuments, and even highways in the open air. In France, Guillaume Reymond creates an impression of massive robots using heaps of used cars and trucks. Anything is possible when the world is your canvas.

RP337 A New You

 RP337 A New You?

More and more Asians are discovering that they don't need to keep the face that they were born with or the bum made huge by too many late-night bubble teas. The body they've always wanted is just a doctor's visit away!
Asia is quickly becoming the plastic surgery capital of the world. Thirty years ago, plastic surgery rates in Asia lagged behind the West due to low incomes, fewer qualified doctors, and a culture that shunned outward vanity. Now, countries like South Korea and China are the places to go to have your face and body altered. In South Korea,20 people in every thousand have had plastic surgery. Most of them had their procedures done in Gangnam, a wealthy district of Seoul. More and more people from Vietnam, China, and Japan are also flocking to Gangnam, where over 500 clinics offer "a new you."
So, what's changed to make Asian people so keen to go under the knife? First and foremost, people have more money in their pockets. A beautiful face has become a symbol of success in Asia, which means plastic surgery can help you display your success to the world. There is also a lot of workplace pressure to get plastic surgery. It's not just the actors and actresses who are looking for eternal youth, but regular people as well. Some job seekers get plastic surgery so they don't lose a job to someone who has the same qualifications but a prettier face.
Asian people tend to want different plastic surgery procedures than their Western counterparts. In the West, customers often want to look younger by having wrinkles or bags of fat under their eyes removed. Asian customers on the other hand often want to look like Westerners. Popular procedures in Asia include double-fold eyelids, breast enlargement, and cheek or lip reduction.
This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. After all, Asia was the birthplace of some of the first plastic surgery procedures. A fourth century Indian medical textbook called The Sushruta Samhita contained a section describing how to reconstruct someone's nose if they happened to have it chopped off.

RP336 The Artful Imparting of Enthusiasm

 RP336 The Artful Imparting of Enthusiasm

When most of us think of cheerleading, we picture elaborate routines, extremely dangerous stunts, and short skirts. Did cheerleading always look as glamorous as it does in Hollywood movies like Bring it On? Where did this peculiar sport that is now practiced by over 1.6 million people around the world come from?
The story of cheerleading begins in late-nineteenth-century America. In 1898, a University of Minnesota student named Johnny Campbell was stumped over how he could help his school's football team win a critical game against a rival school. He decided that the best way he could help the team would be to get the crowd more involved. On the day of the big game, he stood in the stands and led cheers of “rah rahrah, Minn-e-so-tah!” His enthusiasm was infectious, and Minnesota won the game. The concept of cheerleading was born.
In the years following 1898, cheerleading squads started to pop up in schools across America, yet the sport continued to be completely dominated by men in its early years. This changed in 1923 after the University of Minnesota once again pioneered a new trend— this time, the concept of female cheerleading squads. When World War II broke out in the 1940s, women made further advances by filling the gap left by men going overseas to fight. This is how cheerleading became the primarily female sport that we know it as today.
Female cheerleaders meant different kinds of cheerleading routines. The stationary and monotonous cheers of old were quickly replaced with arm movements, kicks, and tumbles. The sport continued to evolve with every passing year.
Cheerleading took another step toward its modern form in 1975, when the Universal Cheerleaders Association (UCA) opened a training camp that included cheerleaders performing routines set to background music. This laid the foundation for competitive cheerleading.
In 1982, the sport stepped into the spotlight when ESPN broadcasted the 1st Cheerleading National Championship. Since then, competitive cheerleading has grown in popularity in America. It has also become more and more popular overseas. There are an estimated 100,000 cheerleaders competing in countries such as Australia, Canada, Japan, Finland, France, Germany, and China.

RP335 Chasing Cheese

 RP335 Chasing Cheese

Chasing after a speeding wheel of cheese may not be everyone's idea of a fun day out, but for the residents of one small village in England, hurtling down a steep hill trying to catch an escaping cheese is one of their oldest and most valued traditions. The Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling festival, held in the village of Brockworth, is undoubtedly one of the United Kingdom's weirdest events.
The crowd gathers at the top of a 90 m long slope, and on the count of three a heavy wheel of cheese is released down the hill. Contestants then hurl themselves down the bumpy incline after the cheese. No one is actually expected to catch the cheese itself, as the incredible speed it reaches within seconds of being released makes that impossible. However, the first person past the finish line at the bottom gets to keep the cheese as a prize.
Usually taking place on the last Monday in May, the event consists of five separate races down the hill. It won't come as a surprise to hear that contestants are frequently hurt in pursuit of the rolling cheese. The record to beat is still 1997, when 33 people were hospitalized with sprained ankles, concussions, and broken bones. Being a spectator isn't any safer, either. Some unlucky onlookers have been hit head-on by the runaway cheese. Fortunately, there are paramedics on standby during the event.
The cheese itself weighs 7 lbs, though for a short time after World War II an even more dangerous wooden cheese was used due to the wartime government's food conserving policies.
The origins of the festival are believed to be linked to an ancient harvest ritual dating back hundreds of years, although no one is quite sure exactly when or why the event began.
For the past two years the event has been officially canceled due to safety concerns and the growing number of people who want to participate. However, this has not stopped some faithful cheese-chasing enthusiasts from hosting their own unofficial cheese-rolling. The locals' passion for keeping their rather eccentric tradition alive is, evidently, a very difficult thing to suppress.

RP334 Japan's Literary Superstar

 RP334 Japan's Literary Superstar

Haruki Murakami's aptitude for blurring the line between the real and imagined has earned him fame on both sides of the Pacific. What makes this Japanese writer so popular not only in his home country but also overseas?
For starters, Murakami has quite a romantic background. Born in 1949 to parents who were Japanese literature teachers, he studied drama at a university in Tokyo. After graduating, he worked at a record shop for a while before deciding to open up a jazz bar with his wife in the mid-1970s.
The inspiration to write a novel came to him while watching a baseball game in 1978. After he got home that night, he grabbed a pen and started writing. Months later he sent his work off to a literary contest and they agreed to publish it. This was Hear the Wind Sing, his first novel. Murakami kept on writing but remained relatively unknown in Japan until the publication of Norwegian Wood in 1987. A decade later, international audiences fell in love with him upon the release of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. When his 2013 novel Colorless Tzukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage was released in Japan, it sold 350,000 copies in the first three days.
Murakami's books have now been translated into over 50 languages worldwide and many people openly speculate that he will one day win the Nobel Prize in Literature. That was quite an inspirational game of baseball!
Readers the world over also love Murakami's unique style. It's as if he can see through our world and into the next. This lets him write novels that provide readers with the purest form of escape, letting them take a vacation from reality.
His prose flows from a mix of Eastern and Western culture. He had a Japanese upbringing, yet many of his cultural influences came from the West. He grew up reading Western authors such as Kurt Vonnegut and F. Scott Fitzgerald and listened to music by Thelonious Monk, Nat King Cole, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan.
The end result was an author who was raised on rebels yet lived in a society where everyone conformed. This contradiction did not manifest itself in his novels as a political point of view, but rather as a blurred line between reality and fantasy.

RP333 The Next Atlantis

 RP333 The Next Atlantis?

Day by day, little by little, Thailand's capital of over eight million people is sinking into the sea. Its annual rate of descent ranges from 1.5 to 5 centimeters. That's very substantial for a city that was built on swampland only 1.5 meters above sea level.
There are several factors behind Bangkok's slow descent into the Gulf of Thailand. First and foremost is urbanization. Every year, Bangkok expands to absorb new waves of people arriving from the surrounding countryside. Heavy buildings are built on top of irrigation canals and natural flood defenses, causing coastal erosion. More people means more groundwater must be extracted for them to drink, and the more groundwater that's extracted, the faster Bangkok sinks. It is a vicious cycle that is difficult to stop.
What's more, the sinking process is irreversible. Every inch that Bangkok sinks is an inch that it will never get back.
Bangkok is going down just as sea levels are coming up. This dangerous combination has led some experts to predict a catastrophe in the not-so-distant future. Some believe that parts of Bangkok will be underwater by 2030. Smith Dharmasaroja of Thailand's National disaster Warning Center goes a step further. According to him, Bangkok will have become the next Atlantis by 2100.
The government of Thailand must act fast if it wants to avoid this catastrophe. One plan is to construct a system of seawalls in the Gulf of Thailand to protect the city from rising sea levels. However, these walls would cost billions of dollars and several prominent members of the scientific community believe that they might not even help. They point out that the last major floods to threaten Bangkok came from the north, not the south.
Another option is to assert more government control over Bangkok's urban sprawl. Buildings need to be moved back from the Chao Phraya River and built on higher ground.
Saving Bangkok will take time, money, and effort. If the government of Thailand delays for too long, it might find that it only has one more option left: abandon the Venice of the East and build a new city somewhere else.

RP332 The War That Never Ends

 RP332 The War That Never Ends

In ancient times, the land known as Israel was the home of the Jewish people. The Romans conquered Judea, as they called it, in the first century B.C. For the next 2,000 years, this small piece of desert would be part of many successive empires. As time passed, most Jews left for other parts of the world. In their place came Arabs, who called the land Palestine and themselves Palestinians.
After World War II, the United Nations decided to give most of Palestine back to the Jews. This involved removing countless Palestinians from their homes. Fighting broke out between the long-time Arab residents and the new Jewish arrivals. The Jews ultimately won the struggle and Israel was founded in 1948.
Armed conflict immediately broke out again, however, this time between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Over the next 25 years, a series of wars would be fought in the region. Some were started by the Jews, and some by the Arabs. Israel won them all, however, and the Palestinians continue to suffer under a harsh Israeli occupation. As a result, many have turned to terrorism in an effort to force the Jews out.
What can be done? Israel insists it has a right to exist and be recognized as a Jewish state. It also says it has the right to keep the territory it has captured. Arab countries refuse to recognize Israel until it gives back all of that territory. They also want the descendants of Palestinians who lost their homes when Israel was created to be allowed to return there.
The conflict between the Arabs and Israelis has had a major impact on the wider world. Western countries, especially the United States, support Israel politically, military, and financially. This has caused many Arabs and other Muslims to resent the West, sometimes violently. Many people throughout the world sympathize with the Palestinians. They wonder why the West ignores Israeli abuses and calls the Palestinians victims.
In the current political climate, attitudes on both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict are only growing harder and more extreme. Whatever else may happen, the war that never ends will continue for a long time to come.

RP331 Forever Young

 RP331 Forever Young

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live forever? Most people consider this an impossible dream, but for one species of jellyfish, immortality is just another part of life. It's been called “the immortal jellyfish,” and it is only about five millimeters long, smaller than your fingernail.
What's special about this kind of jellyfish is that it can reverse its life cycle by changing its cells in a process called transdifferentiation. After it becomes sexually mature, it can force its cells to become those of a progressively younger version of itself. Its umbrella and tentacles are absorbed back into its body, and it sinks to the ocean floor to become an immature pod, or polyp. This polyp can then produce new jellyfish identical to the adult.
One of the benefits of reversing its life cycle is that the jellyfish can survive periods when food is scarce or conditions are dangerous. By returning to its immature stage, it can wait out these harsh conditions as a polyp and emerge again when conditions are more stable.
Though it can still be killed by other sea creatures, this remarkable ability to survive against all odds has allowed the tiny jellyfish to spread around the world. Scientists suspect that these immortal animals are being accidentally ferried around the world by long-distance cargo ships. The jellyfish get sucked into the ships and are then transported thousands of miles away from their original habitats. There are now so many in the world's oceans that some are calling it an invasion.
The species was discovered over a century ago, but its amazing ability was not noticed until fairly recently. This power to dramatically alter its cells has been of great interest to scientists who are trying to find ways to cure illnesses like cancer and heart disease. These currently incurable conditions could be eliminated by the discovery of how to change one kind of cell into another.
Although it might take a while for scientists to figure out how we humans can permanently avoid dying of old age, there is no doubt that the immortal jellyfish holds the key to immortality.