Datasets:
Tasks:
Text Classification
Modalities:
Text
Sub-tasks:
multi-class-classification
Languages:
English
Size:
10K - 100K
ArXiv:
License:
Merge branch 'main' of https://huggingface.co/datasets/ought/raft
Browse files- README.md +3 -3
- data/one_stop_english/test_unlabeled.csv +25 -26
README.md
CHANGED
@@ -119,15 +119,15 @@ The training examples were chosen at random. No attempt was made to ensure that
|
|
119 |
| Ade Corpus V2 | 50 | 5000 | |
|
120 |
| Banking 77 | 50 | 5000 | |
|
121 |
| NeurIPS Impact Statement Risks | 50 | 150 | |
|
122 |
-
| One Stop English | 50 |
|
123 |
| Overruling | 50 | 2350 | |
|
124 |
| Semiconductor Org Types | 50 | 449 | |
|
125 |
-
| Systematic Review Inclusion | 50 |
|
126 |
| TAI Safety Research | 50 | 1639 | |
|
127 |
| Terms Of Service | 50 | 5000 | |
|
128 |
| Tweet Eval Hate | 50 | 2966 | |
|
129 |
| Twitter Complaints | 50 | 3399 | |
|
130 |
-
| **Total** | **550** | **
|
131 |
|
132 |
## Dataset Creation
|
133 |
|
|
|
119 |
| Ade Corpus V2 | 50 | 5000 | |
|
120 |
| Banking 77 | 50 | 5000 | |
|
121 |
| NeurIPS Impact Statement Risks | 50 | 150 | |
|
122 |
+
| One Stop English | 50 | 516 | |
|
123 |
| Overruling | 50 | 2350 | |
|
124 |
| Semiconductor Org Types | 50 | 449 | |
|
125 |
+
| Systematic Review Inclusion | 50 | 2243 | |
|
126 |
| TAI Safety Research | 50 | 1639 | |
|
127 |
| Terms Of Service | 50 | 5000 | |
|
128 |
| Tweet Eval Hate | 50 | 2966 | |
|
129 |
| Twitter Complaints | 50 | 3399 | |
|
130 |
+
| **Total** | **550** | **28712** | |
|
131 |
|
132 |
## Dataset Creation
|
133 |
|
data/one_stop_english/test_unlabeled.csv
CHANGED
@@ -6279,7 +6279,6 @@ In 2014, ten years after its launch, 56% of internet users aged 65 and older hav
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|
6279 |
And 39% are connected to people they have never met in person.
|
6280 |
More than ever, the site is a gateway not just to your friends but to the rest of the internet.
|
6281 |
We may as well get used to it, said David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect. “It might very well go away further down the road but something this big takes a long time to disappear,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Facebook has proven its ability to change and it will continue to be a very, very major player.”",540
|
6282 |
-
,541
|
6283 |
"What surprised researchers was not how hard people found the challenge but how far they would go to avoid it. The task? To sit in a chair and do nothing but think.
|
6284 |
Some found it so unbearable that they took the safe but alarming opportunity to give themselves mild electric shocks to break the tedium.
|
6285 |
Two-thirds of men pressed a button that gave them a painful shock during a 15-minute period of solitude.
|
@@ -6299,7 +6298,7 @@ To the researchers’ surprise, 12 of 18 men gave themselves up to four electric
|
|
6299 |
The scientists said that the most surprising thing was that being alone with their thoughts was so hard for many people that they gave themselves an electric shock – something the participants had earlier said they would pay to avoid.
|
6300 |
Jessica Andrews-Hanna at the University of Colorado said many students would probably give themselves an electric shock to cheer up a tedious lecture. But, she says we need to know more about the motivation of the shockers in Wilson’s study.
|
6301 |
“Imagine – a person is told to sit in a chair with wires attached to their skin and a button that will deliver a harmless but uncomfortable shock, and they are told to just sit there with their thoughts,” she said.
|
6302 |
-
“As they sit there, their mind starts to wander and it naturally goes to that shock – was it really that bad?”",
|
6303 |
"You probably know a vaper – someone who smokes e-cigarettes. But has vaping started to become less popular? Statistics suggest that smokers and recent ex-smokers (the majority of vapers) may already be using e-cigarettes less. The big e-cigarette companies will study the fi gures carefully because they have spent millions of pounds on a technology that they thought was becoming more popular.
|
6304 |
E-cigarettes do not contain tobacco and produce vapour, not smoke. In 2014, the health charity Action on Smoking and Health published fi gures that showed that the number of British users of electronic cigarettes has increased three times from 700,000 users in 2012 to 2.1 million in 2014.
|
6305 |
But fi gures from the Smoking Toolkit Study show vaping may be becoming less popular. The number of vapers who are smokers and exsmokers rose until the end of 2013, when 22% of smokers and ex-smokers were vaping. But this percentage stopped rising in 2014. Then, it dropped to 19% at the end of the year. Professor Robert West, who collected the data for the Toolkit, described the fi gures as statistically important.
|
@@ -6307,7 +6306,7 @@ Smokers are the key group for e-cigarette companies because seven out of ten vap
|
|
6307 |
Experts believe that vaping will probably not become fashionable with young non-smokers. Only 1.8% of children are regular e-cigarette users. But e-cigarettes seem to be most popular with adults who want to quit. “The fi gures published this month show that the use of electronic cigarettes by smokers has stopped rising. But the fi gures also show the huge increase in use since May 2011,” said James Dunworth, of ecigarettedirect.co.uk. “Our customers are still very happy with the product and technology is improving their experience and helping them to switch from traditional cigarettes.”
|
6308 |
“E-cigarettes are like a sort of nicotine patch,” West agreed. “They are more popular than nicotine patches but we do not know if they are more effective. One-third of people who want to quit smoking use e-cigarettes. They are the most popular method of stopping.”
|
6309 |
The European Commission (EC) wants to increase taxes on e-cigarettes, which could make them less popular. A new EC tobacco directive becomes law in 2016. It will limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes to below their current levels. This may mean vapers will have to increase the number they smoke to get the same effect. This is another thing that may make e-cigarettes more expensive.
|
6310 |
-
West suggested that politicians should see e-cigarettes as something that helps people stop smoking. He doesn’t think they should follow the same laws as smoking. “Some local authorities and organizations treat e-cigarettes like cigarettes – they ban them in public places and outdoors,” he said. He thinks we should support vapers not attack them.",
|
6311 |
"The beginning of the year is probably prime-time for feeling glum about work: it’s ages until the next holiday, and it’s dark in the morning and when you get home. And, if you’re stuck in a job you don’t like, it could be enough to have you reaching for your CV.
|
6312 |
But, before you start hunting through the job ads, try to put things in perspective. So, what else could you be doing instead? We asked five people doing some unusual jobs how much they are paid, what the worst parts are and why they enjoy their work.
|
6313 |
1. Dog-food taster
|
@@ -6335,7 +6334,7 @@ The job: Selling and demonstrating a wide range of products on live TV
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|
6335 |
What it involves: Presenting hours and hours of monotonous content, while simultaneously demonstrating the products and appearing to be enthusiastic and knowledgeable about everything that you’re selling. “I prepare and research as much technical and practical information as possible on every single product beforehand,” says Shaun Ryan, presenter for Ideal World TV. “But you also need the ability to relate to every genre of products and to every viewer.”
|
6336 |
Typical salary: A trainee presenter would start on a minimum of £30,000, while an experienced presenter can expect over £55,000.
|
6337 |
Worst part of the job: “The unsociable hours,” says Ryan. “An experienced presenter like myself generally gets to work prime-time hours, which means all weekends, bank holidays and very late evenings, plus the occasional 5am shift.” His worst task ever, he says, was singlehandedly having to sell some female slimming pants: “It was a very tricky hour and not my fi nest.”
|
6338 |
-
Job satisfaction: “I love the rush of live presenting and having to think on my feet every second,” says Ryan. “I also get an adrenaline rush from knowing that, at times, I have thousands of viewers ordering the product that I have just been presenting.”",
|
6339 |
"Prince Harry has flown out of Afghanistan at the end of a four-month tour. During his time there he admitted killing insurgents while flying his Apache helicopter. He spoke about the frustrations of being a royal who wishes for a life out of the spotlight.
|
6340 |
He also told of his disdain for and distrust of some sections of the media and described how his father constantly reminded him to behave more like a member of the royal family.
|
6341 |
A commander of the army’s most sophisticated attack helicopter, the prince said he had shot at the Taliban during operations to support ground troops and rescue injured Afghan and NATO personnel. He said he was only doing his job.
|
@@ -6346,7 +6345,7 @@ The prince said his suspicion of the media came from the treatment of his family
|
|
6346 |
Four years ago, the prince had to be taken out of Afghanistan during his first tour after a media silence was broken by mistake by an Australian magazine. This time, the Ministry of Defence chose to publicize his deployment on the understanding that newspapers and broadcasters would not give a running commentary on his life out there to allow him to do his job. Two-man crews from the BBC, Sky and ITN were sent once each to report on his visit.
|
6347 |
When he was asked whether he felt more comfortable being Captain Wales than Prince Harry, his reply was one of the most revealing he has given about his relationship with Prince Charles. “Definitely. I’ve always been like that. My father’s always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that. But it’s very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyone’s wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing. I get on well with the lads and I enjoy my job. It really is as simple as that.”
|
6348 |
Shortly before he went to Afghanistan, the prince was photographed naked in Las Vegas during a private party. Harry said he had let himself down, but also blamed the media. “I probably let myself down, I let my family down, I let other people down. But, at the end of the day, I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect.”
|
6349 |
-
When he was asked where he and his brother’s fascination with helicopters came from, he said, “Probably the fact that you can only fit a certain number of people in a helicopter, therefore no one can follow us, like you guys.”",
|
6350 |
"The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a son on Monday, 22 July. The baby is third in line to the British throne.
|
6351 |
Kensington Palace announced at 8.30pm that the baby was born at 4.24pm in the exclusive Lindo Wing at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, West London. “We could not be happier,” the Duke of Cambridge said.
|
6352 |
In a statement, Kensington Palace said: “Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4.24pm. The baby weighs 8lbs 6oz. The Duke of Cambridge was present for the birth.”
|
@@ -6365,7 +6364,7 @@ The prime minister was one of the first to offer his congratulations. Speaking o
|
|
6365 |
“It is an important moment in the life of our nation but, above all, it is a wonderful moment for a warm and loving couple who have got a brand new baby boy. It has been a remarkable few years for our royal family: a royal wedding that captured people’s hearts, that extraordinary and magnificent jubilee and now this royal birth – all from a family that has given this nation so much incredible service.”
|
6366 |
Congratulations came from the White House, too, from Barack Obama and his wife. The president said: “Michelle and I are so pleased to congratulate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the joyous occasion of the birth of their first child. We wish them all the happiness and blessings parenthood brings.”
|
6367 |
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, tweeted: “Delighted for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. May God bless them all with love, health and happiness,” he said.
|
6368 |
-
The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said: “Many congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. I wish them and their son all happiness and good health.”",
|
6369 |
"Police and intelligence agencies around the world have, for almost 100 years, used the polygraph, a lie-detector test, to help catch criminals and spies.
|
6370 |
But, now, researchers in Britain and the Netherlands have developed a new method, which is correct (in tests) over 70% of the time. Police stations around the world might begin using this new method within ten years. It doesn’t monitor movements in the face, talking too much or waving arms – all signs that someone is lying. The new method monitors movements in the whole body, which can show that the person is feeling guilty.
|
6371 |
The polygraph is often used in the US in criminal cases and by the FBI and CIA but is much less popular in Europe. Many people do not believe that it is reliable.
|
@@ -6378,7 +6377,7 @@ The tests Anderson and his colleagues did involved 180 students and employees at
|
|
6378 |
The researchers interviewed some of the people about a computer game called Never End that they played for seven minutes. Others lied about playing it.
|
6379 |
The second test involved a lost wallet with £5 inside. Some people had to bring the wallet to a lost-and-found box. Others hid it and lied about it.
|
6380 |
The new body-suit method was correct 82.2% of the time. Researchers monitored how much the people moved their arms and legs, to decide if they were telling the truth or lying.
|
6381 |
-
All-body suits are expensive – they cost about £30,000 – and they can be uncomfortable, so Anderson and his colleagues are now looking at cheaper alternatives. These include using motion-sensing technology from computer games, such as the Kinect devices developed by Microsoft for the Xbox console.",
|
6382 |
"Wales will become the first country in the UK that will assume that people agree to donate their organs, if they haven’t opted out.
|
6383 |
The Welsh Assembly voted to accept the opt-out scheme, which will allow hospitals to assume that people who die want to donate, if they have not registered an objection.
|
6384 |
“This is a very big day for Wales and, most importantly, for the 226 people in Wales who are waiting for an organ transplant,” said the Welsh Health Minister, Mark Drakeford.
|
@@ -6389,7 +6388,7 @@ Wales has acted because it does “not have enough organs for people who need th
|
|
6389 |
“About a third of the people who live in Wales are on the organ donor register, but more than two-thirds of people say they are happy to be organ donors. That other third is people who don’t find the time to put their names on the register.”
|
6390 |
The new law would apply to anybody over 18 who has lived in Wales for at least the year before his or her death. Donated organs would not only go to people in need of a transplant in Wales but to anybody in the UK.
|
6391 |
Doctors are delighted at the scheme. Big efforts have been made in recent years to increase the number of those who carry an organ donation card, with a lot of success. Hospitals have also become better at organizing transplants – for example, they have important discussions with relatives when no one knows what the wishes of the dead person were. But the increase in numbers of organs is still not enough.
|
6392 |
-
Some religious groups strongly oppose the scheme. Members of the Muslim Council of Wales and the South Wales Jewish Representative Council are not happy, while the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, said that “donation ought to be a gift of love, of generosity. If organs can be taken unless someone has explicitly registered an objection, that’s not an expression of love. It’s more a medical use of a body.”",
|
6393 |
"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have won the first part of their fight for privacy. A French magazine was told to stop selling or reusing photos of the royal couple. The pictures show the duchess sunbathing topless while on holiday in the south of France.
|
6394 |
It is possible that the magazine editor and the photographer or photographers will also have to go to a criminal court.
|
6395 |
The French magazine Closer was told to give digital files of the pictures to the couple within 24 hours.
|
@@ -6399,7 +6398,7 @@ The couple welcome the judge’s decision. “They always believed the law was b
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|
6399 |
The royal couple are pleased with the decision, but they want to have a much more public criminal trial against the magazine and photographer or photographers.
|
6400 |
Under French law, if you do not respect someone’s privacy, you may have to spend a maximum of one year in prison and pay a fine of €45,000.
|
6401 |
This punishment would send a message to the world and, the couple hope, stop paparazzi taking photos like this in the future.
|
6402 |
-
On Saturday the Irish Daily Star also published the photos. And the Italian celebrity magazine Chi published a special edition of 26 pages with the photos of the future queen.",
|
6403 |
"Low-income countries will continue to be the most affected by human-induced climate change over the next century. They will experience gradual sea-level rises, stronger cyclones, warmer days and nights, more unpredictable rainfall, and larger and longer heatwaves, according to a recent report.
|
6404 |
The last major United Nations (UN) assessment, in 2007, predicted temperature rises of 6°C or more by the end of the century. That is now thought unlikely by scientists, but average land and sea temperatures are expected to continue rising throughout this century, possibly reaching 4°C above present levels – enough to devastate crops and make life in many cities unbearably hot.
|
6405 |
As temperatures rise and oceans warm, tropical and subtropical regions will see sharp changes in annual rainfall, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released in Stockholm and published online in September.
|
@@ -6412,7 +6411,7 @@ Scientists have also lowered their projections of sea-level rises. Depending on
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|
6412 |
Weather disasters are also more likely in a warmer world, the report suggests. Although the global frequency of tropical cyclones is expected to decrease or remain unchanged, they may become more intense, with stronger winds and heavier rainfall.
|
6413 |
Life in many developing-country cities could become unbearable, especially as urban temperatures are already far above those in surrounding countryside. Much higher temperatures could reduce the length of the growing period in some parts of Africa by up to 20%, the report said.
|
6414 |
The charity Oxfam predicted that world hunger would worsen because climate changes inevitably hurt crop production and reduce incomes. They said the number of people at risk of hunger might rise by 10% to 20% by 2050.
|
6415 |
-
“The changing climate is already jeopardizing gains in the fi ght against hunger, and it looks like it will get worse,” said Oxfam. “A hot world is a hungry world”.",
|
6416 |
"In Iceland, you can be called Aagot, Arney or Ásfríður; Baldey, Bebba or Brá. Dögg, Dimmblá, Etna and Eybjört are fine and so are Frigg, Glódís, Hörn and Ingunn. Jórlaug is OK, as are Obba, Sigurfljóð, Úranía and Vagna. But you cannot, as a girl in Iceland, be called Harriet.
|
6417 |
“The whole situation,” said Tristan Cardew, “is really rather silly.” With his Icelandic wife, Kristin, Cardew is appealing against a decision by the National Registry in the capital Reykjavik not to renew their ten-year-old daughter Harriet’s passport because it does not recognize her first name.
|
6418 |
Since the registry does not recognize the name of Harriet’s 12-year-old brother Duncan either, the two children have, until now, travelled on passports identifying them as Stúlka and Drengur Cardew: Girl and Boy Cardew. “But, this time, the authorities have decided to apply the letter of the law,” Cardew, a British-born cook who moved to Iceland in 2000, said. “And that says no official document will be issued to people who do not bear an approved Icelandic name.”
|
@@ -6422,7 +6421,7 @@ The law says that the names of children born in Iceland must – unless both par
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|
6422 |
For the 5,000 or so children born in Iceland each year, the committee reportedly receives about 100 applications and rejects about half under a 1996 law aimed mainly at preserving the Icelandic language. Among its requirements are that given names must be “capable of having Icelandic grammatical endings”, may not “conflict with the linguistic structure of Iceland” and should be “written in accordance with the ordinary rules of Icelandic spelling”.
|
6423 |
What this means in practice is that names containing letters that do not officially exist in Iceland’s 32-letter alphabet, such as “c”, are out. Similarly, names unable to accommodate the endings required by the different cases used in Icelandic are also routinely turned down. “That was the problem with Harriet,” said Cardew.
|
6424 |
The country’s naming laws have been criticized in recent years: in 2013, Blær – “Light Breeze” – Bjarkardóttir Rúnarsdottir won the right to be officially known by her given name, as opposed to “Girl”, when a court ruled that denying her was a violation of the Icelandic constitution. The former mayor of Reykjavik, Jón Gnarr, has also called Iceland’s naming law “unfair, stupid and against creativity”.
|
6425 |
-
The Cardews could get round Harriet’s problem by giving her an Icelandic middle name. “But it’s a bit late for that and way too silly,” said Cardew. “Are they saying they don’t want us here?”",
|
6426 |
"An atmosphere of melancholy and changing times pervades the opening to the final series of Downton Abbey. The year is 1925 and there are already the first rumblings of the economic storms that will blight the end of the decade. The neighbours are selling up their own stately home, while Lord Grantham seeks to cut back on servants after declaring that under-butlers are no longer affordable.
|
6427 |
But at the real Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle – a stately home owned by George “Geordie” Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon – the financial outlook has rarely been brighter. According to Lady Fiona Carnarvon, the huge global success of Downton has funded a rolling programme of building repairs aimed at safeguarding Highclere for the next generation.
|
6428 |
“It’s been an amazing magic carpet ride for all of us,” she said. “It’s given us a wonderful marketing platform, an international profile. I’m hugely grateful. My husband and I love the house, and the people here. Now, without doubt, it is loved by millions of other people.”
|
@@ -6437,7 +6436,7 @@ Neame said: “They approached me because of the reach. A lot of people here thi
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|
6437 |
Lady Carnarvon is still keen to emphasize that the long-term future of Highclere is not necessarily secure. “The bottom line is quite thin,” she said. “The programme has allowed us to spend faster on the buildings, have the follies restored.”
|
6438 |
In the pipeline is a Tutankhamun centenary event in 2022, 100 years after the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, together with Howard Carter, discovered the tomb that revolutionized our understanding of Egyptology. Another opportunity to keep Highclere in the public mind is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who designed the grounds.
|
6439 |
“What you do is never sit on your laurels. Every single day, don’t take anything for granted,” said Lady Carnarvon. “For all these great houses, you have to invest in them. And, there has been a deficit since the 1930s. Perhaps, in the past, an estate and house defined and supported the family and their lifestyle but, today, it is quite the reverse: the challenge is how Geordie and I seek to support and look after Highclere.
|
6440 |
-
“From my point of view, I’ve tried to persuade people it is fun and have specific events they can engage with, not just a wander around a dusty house. We have to compete with attractions like the London Dungeon.”",
|
6441 |
"As colourful fish were swimming past him off the Greek coast, Cathal Redmond was convinced he had taken some great photos with his first underwater camera. But, when he looked at the results on dry land, the images were brown and murky. Having taken the pictures while holding his breath underwater, he blamed the limited time he had to set up the shots. All he needed, the industrial designer thought, was a little more time to properly capture the fish in their natural environment.
|
6442 |
He vowed to make the little extra time needed a reality and the result is his invention of the Express Dive – a refillable air storage device, held in the mouth, that lets users swim underwater for two minutes. It is aimed at bridging the gap between snorkelling, with its limited scope, and scuba diving, which gives divers the freedom to breathe underwater but at the cost of using cumbersome and expensive gear. The prototype of the invention – which is still in the initial stages of testing individual parts – looks like a cross between a scuba mouthpiece and a water bottle.
|
6443 |
“I wanted to enable people to do more. So, rather than just get in underwater and spend 30 seconds holding their breath, I wanted to do a little bit more than they were able to do,” says Redmond, 27. In 2006, the Irish designer completed a scuba-diving course and loved the feeling of being able to breathe underwater and observe fish in their natural environment. Less enjoyable, however, were the fins, the weight belt, the wetsuit, air tank, mask and all the other equipment.
|
@@ -6447,7 +6446,7 @@ That display, which is in the user’s eyeline, then acts as a health bar turnin
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|
6447 |
The electrics are shielded from the water in the casing and are recharged using inductive power transfer – a system using an electromagnetic field, similar to the pads which can wirelessly charge mobile phones, so that there is no need for exposed wires.
|
6448 |
Redmond says the mouthpiece feels similar to using a snorkel. He likens it to an extension of the lungs in that the user is taking a deep breath and then using it underwater. “It is an extension of the body’s capacity to store air,” he says. The prototype, made from high-density foam, aluminium and silicone, has been tested in parts. Redmond says he has shown that the motor can compress two minutes’ worth of air into the unit and that the design can be effectively held in the diver’s mouth. What he has not yet done is test the device on a diver, fully submerged for two minutes. But, with enough testing, Redmond is confident he can get a fully functioning device that will not endanger swimmers underwater.
|
6449 |
Redmond recently came runner-up for the International James Dyson Award, which will give him £5,000 to further develop the project. Early indications are that the device would be priced at £280, he says, and it is likely to weigh anywhere from 1kg to 3kg depending on the safety features needed.
|
6450 |
-
To anyone who thinks two minutes of air is no more than a minor improvement on snorkelling, Redmond says it could make all the difference underwater. The typical swimmer can hold their breath for about 40 seconds while underwater, he says. “Two minutes is not a lot of time but it is a lot longer than that,” he says.",
|
6451 |
"Benjamin Carle is 96.9% made in France, including even his underpants and socks. Unfortunately, six Ikea forks, a Chinese guitar and unsourced wall paint stopped him being declared a 100% economic patriot, but nobody is perfect.
|
6452 |
Carle, 26, decided, in 2013, to see if it was possible to live using only French-made products for ten months as part of a television documentary.
|
6453 |
He got the idea after the Minister for Economic Renewal, Arnaud Montebourg, asked the French people to buy French products to save the country’s industrial production sector.
|
@@ -6468,7 +6467,7 @@ At the end of the experiment, Carle took out a bank loan to buy new furniture an
|
|
6468 |
Carle’s conclusion: “It’s not entirely possible or even desirable to live 100% ‘made in France’, particularly in terms of new technology. But that wasn’t the point.
|
6469 |
“This wasn’t about French nationalism or patriotism. It was trying to show that we should reflect about the way we buy and make different choices, and that applies in all countries. If we want to save jobs and industries, wherever we are, we might think about supporting them.
|
6470 |
“A T-shirt is more expensive in France but I can be sure it has been produced by workers who are correctly paid and have good working conditions. I cannot be sure about a cheaper T-shirt produced in Asia or Morocco. People could do more as consumers.”
|
6471 |
-
Carle says he hopes to continue supporting French industry and producers, but not 100%. “It is a full-time job just finding the stuff,” he said.",
|
6472 |
"Robert Mysłajek stops dead. Between two paw prints on a muddy mountain track, the scientist finds what he is looking for. “Droppings!” he enthuses. Wolf sightings are so rare that the sighting of their faeces marks a good day, even for a seasoned tracker.
|
6473 |
But it is getting easier. There are now an estimated 1,500 wolves in Poland. The number has doubled in 15 years. Wolves are – along with the brown bear, the lynx and the wolverine – Europe’s last large predator carnivores. Conservationists from Britain, Germany and the Netherlands are beating a path here to find out how the country has saved this protected species, slandered even in fairy tales.
|
6474 |
Bits of bone and hair protrude from the precious black faeces. “It ate a red deer,” says the University of Warsaw biologist. “In my lab, I can tell you all about this wolf – not only its diet but its gender, sexual habits, age, state of health and family connections.”
|
@@ -6493,7 +6492,7 @@ He claims Poland’s new government, elected in October 2015, is hostile to wolv
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|
6493 |
Being a wolf advocate is not easy. “It is not as if you can argue to the politicians that wolves are a big tourist attraction. Most tourists want to see the animals but wolves stay away from humans. They have a tremendously sensitive sense of smell.”
|
6494 |
The 12 British animal science students leave the Polish Carpathians without a wolf sighting; just photographs of paw prints and droppings. Entwisle is convinced that Scotland will never be able to match Poland’s success.
|
6495 |
“It would be amazing for the environment to have them back because of the problem of too many deer. But it would just not be viable because of the roads and sheep.
|
6496 |
-
“There would be problems with farmers. We had our industrial revolution too long ago. We ruined it for ourselves. In Britain, we like predators to be far away and to watch them on television, said Entwisle.",
|
6497 |
"Introduction
|
6498 |
Did you know that, in the UK, there is no law that says restaurants have to pass on tips to staff?
|
6499 |
A new government report asked workers, employers and customers what they thought about tipping. After reading the report, the UK government says it wants to change the rules to make sure that low-paid workers get the tips that customers leave for them.
|
@@ -6516,7 +6515,7 @@ Average tips: £40 per eight-hour shift
|
|
6516 |
I think they treat waiters best in ... Italy
|
6517 |
Where I used to work, waiters kept 80% of cash tips and 40% of card tips. The rest went to the other staff in the restaurant.
|
6518 |
It’s hard to say how much I earn in a shift; maybe about £40. It can make a big difference. Sometimes, waiters need a good night to be able to pay their rent.
|
6519 |
-
They have got tipping right in Italy, where customers don’t add a big tip but usually round up their bill so, if their meal is €19, they leave a €20 note and don’t ask for change.",
|
6520 |
"McDonald’s is the world’s biggest burger chain and a global emblem of American consumer capitalism. But, these days, the golden arches of McDonald’s are looking a little tarnished. After a decade of expansion, customers around the world don’t seem to be ‘lovin’ it’ any more. McDonald’s has revealed that worldwide sales dropped by 3.3% from 2013. The set of results were described as awful.
|
6521 |
The company has problems almost everywhere. In China, sales fell by 23% because local media showed workers at a local supplier claiming to use out-of-date beef and chicken in McDonald’s and KFC products. In Europe, sales are down by 4%, mostly because of problems in Ukraine and the anti-western mood in Russia. Around 200 of McDonald’s 450 restaurants in Russia are being investigated by health inspectors and ten have been closed.
|
6522 |
But it is in the US, where McDonald’s has around 40% of its restaurants, where the crisis is deepest. Almost 60 years since Ray Kroc opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, consumers are losing their appetite for a Big Mac and fries.
|
@@ -6529,7 +6528,7 @@ But critics are not wrong about the longer queues. McDonald’s has a bigger men
|
|
6529 |
In the UK, McDonald’s has turned around its business, which makes Britain a rare bright spot for the company. A competitive breakfast menu, improved coffee and free wi-fi have given McDonald’s a broad appeal in the UK, said consultant Peter Martin, adding that 56% of British adults have visited a McDonald’s restaurant at least once in the last six months.
|
6530 |
Executives are promising to fight misconceptions about its food in its home market. Thompson has promised more organic food and custom-made burgers but, to cut down queues, he also wants to introduce simpler menus. Analysts are not sure how the company can solve the problem of simpler menus and greater choice over fillings.
|
6531 |
“They want to simplify the menu but enhance its ability to customize and that sounds tricky,” said Mark Kalinowski at Janney Capital Markets. Only four out of McDonald’s 14,000 US restaurants had so far tested “build your own burger”, he said. “Right now, we are sceptical; we would like to see more detail.”
|
6532 |
-
Meanwhile, despite the declining sales, the chain continues to expand globally: by the end of 2014, it expects to have 1,400 new restaurants. Kalinowski expects McDonald’s market share will continue to shrink but he, too, warned against writing off the company. “We think it will be number one for not just years but decades to come.”",
|
6533 |
"The problem with Google Glasses, says Takahito Iguchi, is that they’re not cool. He may be right. There’s already a website dedicated to people wearing them looking either ridiculous or smug or, more often, both. Search Google Images and one of the first hits is a picture of a large, naked man wearing them in the shower. And it’s this that Iguchi, a Japanese entrepreneur, hopes may be Google’s Achilles’ heel. He is launching a competitor that is a bit more stylish. A bit more Blade Runner. A bit more Japanese.
|
6534 |
Iguchi’s augmented reality glasses aren’t really glasses – they are more a single piece of metal with a camera and a tiny projector. They are called Telepathy One and, since they were presented to the public for the first time in Austin, Texas, they have attracted $5m of venture capital. Like Glass, Telepathy One is due to launch in 2014.
|
6535 |
It’s a simplified version of Google Glass. Glass has a range of uses – you can surf the internet, read emails, take photographs – but Telepathy will be “more of a communication device”. Connected via Bluetooth to your phone, it will focus on real-time visual and audio sharing. You’ll be able to post photos and videos from your line of vision on Facebook or send them as an email, or see and speak to a video image of a friend.
|
@@ -6539,7 +6538,7 @@ Compared to Google, Telepathy is a minnow, but Iguchi doesn’t seem to worry. I
|
|
6539 |
“Tokyo is very rich in fashion and culture but it’s still an island. It’s isolated. There is not any way to expand. Whereas, in Silicon Valley, everyone is from everywhere. It’s where you come to connect globally.” The hardware will be made in Japan, and he is putting together a team of software engineers in the US to develop its applications.
|
6540 |
Building the prototype of Telepathy One was easy, Iguchi says. “We have every sort of technology in Tokyo. It is presenting it to the world that is the challenge.” The top manufacturers all want to work with him, he says, because they have the technology, they just struggle to sell it. “There needs to be a story to the product. Like Apple did with the iPod – 1,000 songs in your pocket. And Steve Jobs was inspired by Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony, and he inspired me, so maybe it will come in a circle.”
|
6541 |
Maybe. He certainly has the confidence of Jobs, but, with a thick Japanese accent, he sometimes struggles to make himself understood, a fact that may have contributed to his idea for Telepathy One. When he went to London to present the headset, he stayed in an Airbnb. “The house owner was not my friend but I talked with him for three hours, and now he is my friend. That is how long it takes to understand each other, to share our feelings, and background, and career. Maybe Telepathy makes that quicker. If you are getting info from the cloud and social networks, that will happen more easily.”
|
6542 |
-
Iguchi hopes that seeing somebody else’s literal point of view will help you to see their metaphorical point of view. As a student, he explains, he studied philosophy by day and taught himself how to code by night. “And, one day, I opened the door of my apartment and I suddenly realized that everything is code. Everything is coded and is shareable between humans. And everything can be encoded and decoded. And, if code is exchangeable between humans, that will end all war.”",
|
6543 |
"n 2005, BlackBerry brought instant messaging to the mobile phone and the company was just entering its period of success. Then, the iPhone was still just an idea and BlackBerry’s innovations made its smartphone one of Canada’s biggest exports.
|
6544 |
Six years later, in the summer of 2011, there were riots in London and other UK cities. Rioters used BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and politicians wanted the service to shut down. But, two years later, the users themselves are leaving BBM.
|
6545 |
Fewer and fewer people want BlackBerry phones. There are now many alternative products, from Facebook’s and Apple’s instant messaging applications to independent apps such as WhatsApp and Kik (which is also Canadian). They are free to download and use, and they use the internet to swap text messages, pictures, voice clips, 'stickers' and even videos between most types of phones.
|
@@ -6548,7 +6547,7 @@ BBM says it has 80 million monthly users after its upgrade, but WhatsApp has 300
|
|
6548 |
Messaging is now becoming visual. Photos that are uploaded to Instagram get instant comments and Snapchat’s pictures have opened a world of other possibilities. Like BBM, all of these services are free for any phone with an internet connection. But, in 2011, BBM was so powerful that it helped to start a revolution in Egypt; and at the time of the London riots, people used BBM, not their televisions, to find out quickly what was happening.
|
6549 |
Nearly 80% of young smartphone owners regularly use a social networking application but two-thirds use more than one. 60% of 16- to 24-year-olds use Facebook every day, but 46% use alternatives. “It’s much more complex,” says Benedict Evans, a digital media specialist. “All of these apps use your smartphone. Apps rise and fall like fireworks. Some, like Instagram, last; others just disappear.”
|
6550 |
Thirteen-year-old Bennett has three phones. He keeps his BlackBerry for messaging, he uses an iPhone to play games, and he makes phone calls on an Android phone. His friends are still on BBM. At the touch of a few buttons, you can send a single BlackBerry message to several hundred people; on WhatsApp, the limit is 50. But, for Bennett, Instagram is now a major social network. “Instagram is Facebook without parents,” he says. “Facebook is now for older people.” The low cost of buying and using a BlackBerry is still an advantage. Anyone with a second-hand phone and a £7-a-month deal from a telecoms company can use unlimited BBM messages. But people no longer trust the privacy of BBM. Business people, revolutionaries, demonstrators and rioters used to believe that their messages were secret. The arrests that followed the riots showed that wasn’t true.
|
6551 |
-
In the rich London district of South Kensington, the older pupils at one school all have Apple phones. They all use WhatsApp. For many, BBM is a distant memory. “I still have a Blackberry, but I’m the only one,” says one teenager. And how does that make him feel? “Isolated,” he says.",
|
6552 |
"He arrived – in his own words, in 2005 – as “a simple, humble worker in God’s vineyard”. And on a grey, cold, blustery Monday in February, Pope Benedict XVI signed off in the same fashion: like an elderly labourer who can no longer ignore the pains in his back; who can no more count on the strength of his arms. Characteristically for this most traditionally minded of pontiffs, he made his excuses in Latin. The first German pope in modern times timed his departure to the minute. “From 28 February 2013, at 20.00 hours”, he told a gathering of cardinals in the Vatican, “the see of Rome, the see of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new supreme pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.”
|
6553 |
Among those present was a Mexican prelate, Monsignor Oscar Sanchéz Barba, from Guadalajara. He was in Rome to be told the date for a canonization in which he has played a leading role. “We were all in the Sala del Concistoro in the third loggia of the Apostolic Palace,” he said. “After giving the date for the canonization, the twelfth of May, the Pope took a sheet of paper and read from it.
|
6554 |
“We were all left …” – Sanchéz Barba looked around him in the Bernini colonnade that embraces St Peter’s Square, grasping for the word, as speechless as the “princes of the church” who had just heard the man they believe to be God’s representative on earth give up on the job. “The cardinals were just looking at one another,” Sanchéz Barba said.
|
@@ -6556,7 +6555,7 @@ Angelo Sodano, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, who must have been forewarn
|
|
6556 |
John Thavis, who spent 30 years reporting on the Holy See and whose book, The Vatican Diaries, is soon to be published, said he had had an intuition the Pope might be about to resign and timed his return to Rome from the US accordingly. A fellow-Vatican watcher confirmed this to be the case. Thavis noted that in the book-length interview Benedict gave to a German journalist, published as Light of the World in 2010, he had made it clear he considered it would be right to go if he felt he were no longer up to the job. “I asked myself: if I were Pope and wanted to resign, when would I choose? He has completed his series of books and most of his projects are off the ground. What is more, there were no dates in his calendar of events he personally had to attend. I thought the most likely date was 22 February, which is the Feast of the Chair of St Peter. So I got it wrong.”
|
6557 |
The line emerging from the Vatican within hours of the announcement was that the Pope’s decision was a brave one. By this account, Benedict – never one to shrink from utterances and decisions that shocked – had taken it upon himself to bring his church face to face with reality: the reality that contemporary medicine can keep men alive far beyond the age at which they are up to grappling with the demands of running a vast global organization. Thavis agreed: “What I find particularly courageous is that he is prepared to say now, when he is not sick, that he is going; and that he’s doing it because he’s tired and not because he’s particularly ill.” But is that the whole story? Does he know more about his state of health than the Vatican has so far made public?
|
6558 |
Benedict’s own account of his reasons makes it clear that he took into account not only his physical, but also his psychological condition: “In order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.” Other theories will no doubt swirl around the Vatican in the days and weeks ahead, just as they did following the death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, 33 days after his election. Already there is speculation that something was about to come out about Benedict’s past. The Vatican will just as predictably dismiss such notions with contempt. But they are understandable all the same, for the transcendental importance of what Benedict has done cannot be overstated.
|
6559 |
-
Emerging from St Peter’s Basilica, Julia Rochester, from London, who described herself as a lapsed Catholic, was still turning over the implications of the Pope’s resignation. “If you’re God’s chosen one, how do you choose not be chosen?” she mused. It is a question many practising Catholics will be asking of their priests in the weeks ahead. In his first speech as Pope – humbly disclaiming his fitness for the task – Benedict said: “I am consoled by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act, even with insufficient tools.” At some point in the last eight years, it would seem, he ceased to believe that was true.",
|
6560 |
"From glow-in-the-dark trees to underground bike sheds and solar-powered bins, we look at some of the more leftfield solutions to help make our cities more livable.
|
6561 |
City living has many upsides but a sustainable lifestyle is increasingly not among them. Pollution, traffic and loss of green spaces are just some of the daily trials that city-dwellers have to deal with.
|
6562 |
Step forward the inventors. We consider ten of the wackier solutions to making our cities more livable.
|
@@ -6579,7 +6578,7 @@ To prove the dynamism of the “living wall” concept, look no further than Ham
|
|
6579 |
9 Smart rubbish bins
|
6580 |
Forget gas-guzzling dumper trucks and smelly skips. City authorities around the world are now turning to solar-powered “trash compactors” to keep litter off the streets. The 150-gallon-capacity rubbish bins are equipped with a motor that pushes down the rubbish when it nears the top. The motor is powered by solar panels embedded in the lid. The newest BigBelly bins include a wireless monitoring system that notifies rubbish collectors when the bins are full.
|
6581 |
10 Spray paint
|
6582 |
-
Finally, desperate times may sometimes call for desperate measures. That’s clearly what was going through the minds of authorities in Chengdu, one of China’s fastest growing cities. To brighten up the place, the municipal landscaping department has taken to spraying the yellowing grass green. Use of the non-toxic green spray has now spread to Tianjin and a host of other cities in China’s north-west.",
|
6583 |
"In Canada’s Arctic, summers are marked by a bright light that bathes the treeless tundra for more than 20 hours a day. For some, it’s a welcome change from the unrelenting darkness of winter. But, for the small but growing Muslim community of Iqaluit, Nunavut, life in the land of the midnight sun poses a real challenge during the month of Ramadan, during which Muslims typically fast from sunrise to sunset.
|
6584 |
“I haven’t fainted once,” said 29-year-old Abdul Karim, one of the few in the city who has carefully timed his Ramadan fast to the Arctic sun since moving from Ottawa in 2011. This year, that means eating at about 1.30am before the sun rises and breaking his fast at about 11pm when the sun sets. “The only reason to stop would be if it hurts my health,” Karim said. Pointing to his sizable frame, he laughed as he added: “But, looking at my condition, I don’t think fasting will hurt me.”
|
6585 |
As the end of Ramadan draws near for Muslims around the world, much of the holy month’s focus on community work, prayer and reflection has been a constant in communities around the world. But in Iqaluit and the other Muslim communities in the Arctic, the long days have forced a shift in how the element of fasting is approached.
|
@@ -6588,7 +6587,7 @@ Many in the 100-strong community break their fast together, gathering in the cit
|
|
6588 |
It’s a scene that plays out across Canada’s northernmost mosques during Ramadan, as Muslim communities wrestle with the country’s unique geography. The 300 or so Muslims in Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories, have several options when it comes to fasting during Ramadan, said Nazim Awan, president of the Yellowknife Islamic Centre, with exceptions made for those who are pregnant or ill. “There might be some superhumans who want to fast for 23 hours, but the other option is to follow the intent and spirit of fasting by following nearby cities or they can follow the times of Mecca and Medina.” In recent years, much of the community has opted to follow the Ramadan timetable of Edmonton, in Alberta. Some, such as Awan – a father of two young children, including a 12-year-old who recently started fasting – follow the timings of Mecca. He hopes to encourage his son with the more manageable timetable of about 15 hours of fasting as compared with about 18 hours in Edmonton.
|
6589 |
“If I fast Yellowknife or Edmonton times, my son might say, 'Papa, you are really insane. What are you doing?'” he said. Faced with the impossibility of following the local movements of the sun, the 100 or so Muslims in Inuvik, a small town that sits 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, have also been following Edmonton’s timetable. “We currently have 24 hours a day of sun,” said Ahmad Alkhalaf. “There’s no sunrise or sunset.”
|
6590 |
The adherence to Edmonton’s schedule was already in place in 2001 when he moved from Toronto to the small northern community of 3,500 people. “My first Ramadan here was in December. There’s no sun at that time; it’s dark all day and night. So we used Edmonton time.” At times, it can be psychologically challenging to follow the clock rather than what is happening outside, Alkhalaf said. “You’re supposed to break your fast when it’s dusk and we eat when the sun is out. It’s not usual to have iftar [the meal breaking the fast] when the sun is up,” he said. In Inuvik, where much of the population is Inuit, the Muslim community has sought to strike a balance between Ramadan and the local culture and traditions. The iftar meal includes dates and rich curries – as well as local game such as reindeer, prepared in accordance with Islamic law. “We make a soup or curry … but instead of using beef, we use reindeer.”
|
6591 |
-
In Iqaluit, as the Muslim community prepares to mark the end of Ramadan, some reflect that 2016’s timing – stretching across some of the longest days of the year – has made it one of the more challenging of recent years. It’s particularly true for those like Karim who have determinedly followed the local sunrise and sunset. But, his efforts will be rewarded years from now, said Karim, thanks to the lunar calendar. Ramadan will eventually fall during winter, which, in Iqaluit, sees the sun rise and set within a few hours each day. “I’ll follow those hours, too,” he said with a laugh. “Oh yes, definitely.”",
|
6592 |
"wo mothers in South Africa have discovered they are raising each other’s daughters after they were mistakenly switched at birth in a hospital in 2010.
|
6593 |
But, while one of the women wants to correct the error and reclaim her biological child, the other is refusing to give back the girl she has raised as her own, posing a huge legal dilemma.
|
6594 |
Henk Strydom, a lawyer for one of the mothers, who cannot be identified because of a court order, described the inadvertent swap as a travesty and tragedy that is unlikely to have a happy ending.
|
@@ -6606,7 +6605,7 @@ Karabo Ngidi, a lawyer with the centre, said “What’s going to happen must be
|
|
6606 |
The families are of Zulu ethnicity and so Zulu tradition, culture and customary law will be a factor, she added. It is also still possible the ex- partner of the mother taking legal action could be the biological father of the girl who was switched.
|
6607 |
It is not the first child-swap case to come to light in South Africa. In 1995, two mothers were awarded damages after their sons, born in 1989, were accidentally switched at the Johannesburg hospital where they were born.
|
6608 |
In 2009, in Oregon in the United States, Dee Ann Angell and Kay Rene Reed discovered that they had been mistakenly mixed up at birth in 1953 when a nurse brought them back from bathing. In 2013, in Japan, a 60-year-old man swapped at birth from his rich parents to a poor family was given compensation. He grew up on welfare and became a truck driver, whereas his biological siblings – and the boy brought up in his place – attended private secondary schools and universities.
|
6609 |
-
Bruce Laing, a clinical psychologist in Johannesburg, said the long-term effects of a baby swap could be “profound”, “terrifying” and “incredibly traumatizing”. He told The Times of South Africa: “An increasingly complicated situation is that some resentment towards a child that is not yours might occur. The parents might always be thinking 'What if?'”",
|
6610 |
"According to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO), 35.6% of all women around the world will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, usually from a male partner. The report reveals the shocking extent of attacks on women from the men with whom they share their lives, with 30% of women being attacked by partners. It also finds that a large proportion of murders of women – 38% – are carried out by their partners.
|
6611 |
The highest levels of violence against women are in Africa, where nearly half of all women – 45.6% – will suffer physical or sexual violence. In low- and middle-income Europe, the proportion is 27.2%. However, wealthier nations are not always safer for women – a third of women in high-income countries (32.7%) will experience violence at some stage in their lives. 42% of the women who experience violence suffer injuries, which can bring them to the attention of healthcare staff. That, says the report, is often the first opportunity for violence in the home to be discovered and for the woman to be offered help. Violence has a significant effect on women’s health. Some arrive at hospital with broken bones, while others suffer pregnancy-related complications and mental illness.
|
6612 |
The two reports from the WHO – one is on the extent of violence, the other offers guidelines to healthcare staff on helping women – are the work of Dr Claudia Garcia-Moreno, lead specialist in gender, reproductive rights, sexual health and adolescence at WHO, and Professor Charlotte Watts, an epidemiologist who specializes in gender, violence and health, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
|
@@ -6616,7 +6615,7 @@ More sexual assaults and rapes by acquaintances or strangers are reported in hig
|
|
6616 |
The authors say that their previous research shows that better-educated women and working women are less likely to suffer violence, although not in all regions. There is a need to question social norms, said Watts. “What is society’s attitude concerning the acceptability of certain forms of violence against women?” she asked. “In some societies, it is not OK – but not all.”
|
6617 |
“I think the numbers are a wake-up call for all of us to pay more attention to this issue,” said Garcia-Moreno. Over the past ten years, there has been increasing recognition of the problem, she said, but “we have to recognize that it is a complex problem. We don’t have a vaccine or a pill”.
|
6618 |
The new WHO clinical and policy guidelines recommend healthcare staff should be trained to recognize the signs of domestic violence and sexual assault, but they do not recommend general screening – that is, asking every woman who arrives in a clinic whether she has been subjected to violence.
|
6619 |
-
“But, if you see a woman coming back several times with injuries she doesn’t mention, you should ask about domestic violence,” said Garcia-Moreno. “When I was training in medical school, it wasn’t something you learned or knew about. Years later, I was sometimes in a situation where I could tell there was something else wrong with the woman I was interviewing, but didn’t know that domestic violence was the issue. Now, I think I would do the interview very differently.”",
|
6620 |
"At the beginning of the final series of the TV programme, Downton Abbey, there is a feeling of sadness and everyone knows things are changing. The year is 1925 and Downton Abbey’s neighbours are selling their stately home. At Downton Abbey, Lord Grantham wants to reduce the number of servants.
|
6621 |
The real Downton Abbey is Highclere Castle – a stately home owned by George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon. At Highclere Castle, they have more money than before. Lady Fiona Carnarvon says that the huge success of Downton all around the world has paid for building repairs at the castle.
|
6622 |
“It’s been an amazing magic carpet ride for all of us,” she said. “I’m very grateful. My husband and I love Highclere Castle. Now, millions of other people love it.”
|
@@ -6629,7 +6628,7 @@ VisitBritain’s director, Patricia Yates, said: “The links between tourism, f
|
|
6629 |
“Downton Abbey expresses a certain view of Britain. It is a fantasy world, based in a particular time in history. It’s the first TV period drama that everyone knows and talks about.”
|
6630 |
Lady Carnarvon says that the long-term future of Highclere might not be secure. But, she says, “The programme has allowed us to spend faster on the buildings.”
|
6631 |
Highclere Castle plans a Tutankhamun event in 2022, 100 years after the 5th Earl of Carnarvon went to Egypt with Howard Carter and discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb. Another event is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who designed the grounds.
|
6632 |
-
“Every single day, don’t take anything for granted,” said Lady Carnarvon. “You have to invest in these great houses. I’ve tried to show people it is fun. We have special events, not just a walk around a dusty house.”",
|
6633 |
"Like veins carrying the lifeblood of a city, a subway system teems with billions of inhabitants: the bacteria of Swiss cheese and kimchi, of bubonic plague and drug-proof bugs and of human skin. Now, for the first time, scientists have started to catalogue and map the bacteria coursing through a city’s subway – and they have found a wealth of curious results.
|
6634 |
Dr Christopher Mason, a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medical College, led a team that, for 18 months, swabbed the New York City subway system for the microscopic life forms that cover its turnstiles, seats, ticket booths and stations. In what Mason called “the first city-scale genetic profile ever”, his team found meningitis at Times Square, a trace of anthrax on the handhold of a train carriage and bacteria that cause bubonic plague on a rubbish bin and ticket machine at stations in uptown Manhattan.
|
6635 |
In research published in the journal Cell Systems, the team strongly downplayed the findings of plague and anthrax, noting the extremely small trace of the latter, that rats likely carried the former and that no one has fallen ill with plague in or around New York for years.
|
@@ -6645,4 +6644,4 @@ Mason said people should not be concerned about getting urinary-tract infections
|
|
6645 |
“If anything,” he added, “I’ve become much more confident riding the subway.”
|
6646 |
Many findings made sense: heavily trafficked stations like Grand Central and Times Square had more bacteria and more diversity among them; the subway was most enriched for bacteria associated with skin. The Bronx, with its diverse neighbourhoods and stations, had the greatest diversity of bacteria; Staten Island, with just three stops, had the lowest.
|
6647 |
The researchers found marine bacteria at South Ferry, a station that flooded during Hurricane Sandy – but they were surprised to note the species included some normally associated with Antarctica and fish.
|
6648 |
-
The next steps, Mason said, are studies of other cities, which have begun in Paris, São Paolo and Shanghai, and continued studies of New York, for instance to see how the microbiome changes with the seasons. He said he hoped the research would provide “a baseline” of research for health officials and geneticists, and could help health officials to be better prepared to prevent and track diseases and pathogens.",
|
|
|
6279 |
And 39% are connected to people they have never met in person.
|
6280 |
More than ever, the site is a gateway not just to your friends but to the rest of the internet.
|
6281 |
We may as well get used to it, said David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect. “It might very well go away further down the road but something this big takes a long time to disappear,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Facebook has proven its ability to change and it will continue to be a very, very major player.”",540
|
|
|
6282 |
"What surprised researchers was not how hard people found the challenge but how far they would go to avoid it. The task? To sit in a chair and do nothing but think.
|
6283 |
Some found it so unbearable that they took the safe but alarming opportunity to give themselves mild electric shocks to break the tedium.
|
6284 |
Two-thirds of men pressed a button that gave them a painful shock during a 15-minute period of solitude.
|
|
|
6298 |
The scientists said that the most surprising thing was that being alone with their thoughts was so hard for many people that they gave themselves an electric shock – something the participants had earlier said they would pay to avoid.
|
6299 |
Jessica Andrews-Hanna at the University of Colorado said many students would probably give themselves an electric shock to cheer up a tedious lecture. But, she says we need to know more about the motivation of the shockers in Wilson’s study.
|
6300 |
“Imagine – a person is told to sit in a chair with wires attached to their skin and a button that will deliver a harmless but uncomfortable shock, and they are told to just sit there with their thoughts,” she said.
|
6301 |
+
“As they sit there, their mind starts to wander and it naturally goes to that shock – was it really that bad?”",541
|
6302 |
"You probably know a vaper – someone who smokes e-cigarettes. But has vaping started to become less popular? Statistics suggest that smokers and recent ex-smokers (the majority of vapers) may already be using e-cigarettes less. The big e-cigarette companies will study the fi gures carefully because they have spent millions of pounds on a technology that they thought was becoming more popular.
|
6303 |
E-cigarettes do not contain tobacco and produce vapour, not smoke. In 2014, the health charity Action on Smoking and Health published fi gures that showed that the number of British users of electronic cigarettes has increased three times from 700,000 users in 2012 to 2.1 million in 2014.
|
6304 |
But fi gures from the Smoking Toolkit Study show vaping may be becoming less popular. The number of vapers who are smokers and exsmokers rose until the end of 2013, when 22% of smokers and ex-smokers were vaping. But this percentage stopped rising in 2014. Then, it dropped to 19% at the end of the year. Professor Robert West, who collected the data for the Toolkit, described the fi gures as statistically important.
|
|
|
6306 |
Experts believe that vaping will probably not become fashionable with young non-smokers. Only 1.8% of children are regular e-cigarette users. But e-cigarettes seem to be most popular with adults who want to quit. “The fi gures published this month show that the use of electronic cigarettes by smokers has stopped rising. But the fi gures also show the huge increase in use since May 2011,” said James Dunworth, of ecigarettedirect.co.uk. “Our customers are still very happy with the product and technology is improving their experience and helping them to switch from traditional cigarettes.”
|
6307 |
“E-cigarettes are like a sort of nicotine patch,” West agreed. “They are more popular than nicotine patches but we do not know if they are more effective. One-third of people who want to quit smoking use e-cigarettes. They are the most popular method of stopping.”
|
6308 |
The European Commission (EC) wants to increase taxes on e-cigarettes, which could make them less popular. A new EC tobacco directive becomes law in 2016. It will limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes to below their current levels. This may mean vapers will have to increase the number they smoke to get the same effect. This is another thing that may make e-cigarettes more expensive.
|
6309 |
+
West suggested that politicians should see e-cigarettes as something that helps people stop smoking. He doesn’t think they should follow the same laws as smoking. “Some local authorities and organizations treat e-cigarettes like cigarettes – they ban them in public places and outdoors,” he said. He thinks we should support vapers not attack them.",542
|
6310 |
"The beginning of the year is probably prime-time for feeling glum about work: it’s ages until the next holiday, and it’s dark in the morning and when you get home. And, if you’re stuck in a job you don’t like, it could be enough to have you reaching for your CV.
|
6311 |
But, before you start hunting through the job ads, try to put things in perspective. So, what else could you be doing instead? We asked five people doing some unusual jobs how much they are paid, what the worst parts are and why they enjoy their work.
|
6312 |
1. Dog-food taster
|
|
|
6334 |
What it involves: Presenting hours and hours of monotonous content, while simultaneously demonstrating the products and appearing to be enthusiastic and knowledgeable about everything that you’re selling. “I prepare and research as much technical and practical information as possible on every single product beforehand,” says Shaun Ryan, presenter for Ideal World TV. “But you also need the ability to relate to every genre of products and to every viewer.”
|
6335 |
Typical salary: A trainee presenter would start on a minimum of £30,000, while an experienced presenter can expect over £55,000.
|
6336 |
Worst part of the job: “The unsociable hours,” says Ryan. “An experienced presenter like myself generally gets to work prime-time hours, which means all weekends, bank holidays and very late evenings, plus the occasional 5am shift.” His worst task ever, he says, was singlehandedly having to sell some female slimming pants: “It was a very tricky hour and not my fi nest.”
|
6337 |
+
Job satisfaction: “I love the rush of live presenting and having to think on my feet every second,” says Ryan. “I also get an adrenaline rush from knowing that, at times, I have thousands of viewers ordering the product that I have just been presenting.”",543
|
6338 |
"Prince Harry has flown out of Afghanistan at the end of a four-month tour. During his time there he admitted killing insurgents while flying his Apache helicopter. He spoke about the frustrations of being a royal who wishes for a life out of the spotlight.
|
6339 |
He also told of his disdain for and distrust of some sections of the media and described how his father constantly reminded him to behave more like a member of the royal family.
|
6340 |
A commander of the army’s most sophisticated attack helicopter, the prince said he had shot at the Taliban during operations to support ground troops and rescue injured Afghan and NATO personnel. He said he was only doing his job.
|
|
|
6345 |
Four years ago, the prince had to be taken out of Afghanistan during his first tour after a media silence was broken by mistake by an Australian magazine. This time, the Ministry of Defence chose to publicize his deployment on the understanding that newspapers and broadcasters would not give a running commentary on his life out there to allow him to do his job. Two-man crews from the BBC, Sky and ITN were sent once each to report on his visit.
|
6346 |
When he was asked whether he felt more comfortable being Captain Wales than Prince Harry, his reply was one of the most revealing he has given about his relationship with Prince Charles. “Definitely. I’ve always been like that. My father’s always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that. But it’s very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyone’s wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing. I get on well with the lads and I enjoy my job. It really is as simple as that.”
|
6347 |
Shortly before he went to Afghanistan, the prince was photographed naked in Las Vegas during a private party. Harry said he had let himself down, but also blamed the media. “I probably let myself down, I let my family down, I let other people down. But, at the end of the day, I was in a private area and there should be a certain amount of privacy that one should expect.”
|
6348 |
+
When he was asked where he and his brother’s fascination with helicopters came from, he said, “Probably the fact that you can only fit a certain number of people in a helicopter, therefore no one can follow us, like you guys.”",544
|
6349 |
"The Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a son on Monday, 22 July. The baby is third in line to the British throne.
|
6350 |
Kensington Palace announced at 8.30pm that the baby was born at 4.24pm in the exclusive Lindo Wing at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, West London. “We could not be happier,” the Duke of Cambridge said.
|
6351 |
In a statement, Kensington Palace said: “Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4.24pm. The baby weighs 8lbs 6oz. The Duke of Cambridge was present for the birth.”
|
|
|
6364 |
“It is an important moment in the life of our nation but, above all, it is a wonderful moment for a warm and loving couple who have got a brand new baby boy. It has been a remarkable few years for our royal family: a royal wedding that captured people’s hearts, that extraordinary and magnificent jubilee and now this royal birth – all from a family that has given this nation so much incredible service.”
|
6365 |
Congratulations came from the White House, too, from Barack Obama and his wife. The president said: “Michelle and I are so pleased to congratulate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the joyous occasion of the birth of their first child. We wish them all the happiness and blessings parenthood brings.”
|
6366 |
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, tweeted: “Delighted for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. May God bless them all with love, health and happiness,” he said.
|
6367 |
+
The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said: “Many congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. I wish them and their son all happiness and good health.”",545
|
6368 |
"Police and intelligence agencies around the world have, for almost 100 years, used the polygraph, a lie-detector test, to help catch criminals and spies.
|
6369 |
But, now, researchers in Britain and the Netherlands have developed a new method, which is correct (in tests) over 70% of the time. Police stations around the world might begin using this new method within ten years. It doesn’t monitor movements in the face, talking too much or waving arms – all signs that someone is lying. The new method monitors movements in the whole body, which can show that the person is feeling guilty.
|
6370 |
The polygraph is often used in the US in criminal cases and by the FBI and CIA but is much less popular in Europe. Many people do not believe that it is reliable.
|
|
|
6377 |
The researchers interviewed some of the people about a computer game called Never End that they played for seven minutes. Others lied about playing it.
|
6378 |
The second test involved a lost wallet with £5 inside. Some people had to bring the wallet to a lost-and-found box. Others hid it and lied about it.
|
6379 |
The new body-suit method was correct 82.2% of the time. Researchers monitored how much the people moved their arms and legs, to decide if they were telling the truth or lying.
|
6380 |
+
All-body suits are expensive – they cost about £30,000 – and they can be uncomfortable, so Anderson and his colleagues are now looking at cheaper alternatives. These include using motion-sensing technology from computer games, such as the Kinect devices developed by Microsoft for the Xbox console.",546
|
6381 |
"Wales will become the first country in the UK that will assume that people agree to donate their organs, if they haven’t opted out.
|
6382 |
The Welsh Assembly voted to accept the opt-out scheme, which will allow hospitals to assume that people who die want to donate, if they have not registered an objection.
|
6383 |
“This is a very big day for Wales and, most importantly, for the 226 people in Wales who are waiting for an organ transplant,” said the Welsh Health Minister, Mark Drakeford.
|
|
|
6388 |
“About a third of the people who live in Wales are on the organ donor register, but more than two-thirds of people say they are happy to be organ donors. That other third is people who don’t find the time to put their names on the register.”
|
6389 |
The new law would apply to anybody over 18 who has lived in Wales for at least the year before his or her death. Donated organs would not only go to people in need of a transplant in Wales but to anybody in the UK.
|
6390 |
Doctors are delighted at the scheme. Big efforts have been made in recent years to increase the number of those who carry an organ donation card, with a lot of success. Hospitals have also become better at organizing transplants – for example, they have important discussions with relatives when no one knows what the wishes of the dead person were. But the increase in numbers of organs is still not enough.
|
6391 |
+
Some religious groups strongly oppose the scheme. Members of the Muslim Council of Wales and the South Wales Jewish Representative Council are not happy, while the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, said that “donation ought to be a gift of love, of generosity. If organs can be taken unless someone has explicitly registered an objection, that’s not an expression of love. It’s more a medical use of a body.”",547
|
6392 |
"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have won the first part of their fight for privacy. A French magazine was told to stop selling or reusing photos of the royal couple. The pictures show the duchess sunbathing topless while on holiday in the south of France.
|
6393 |
It is possible that the magazine editor and the photographer or photographers will also have to go to a criminal court.
|
6394 |
The French magazine Closer was told to give digital files of the pictures to the couple within 24 hours.
|
|
|
6398 |
The royal couple are pleased with the decision, but they want to have a much more public criminal trial against the magazine and photographer or photographers.
|
6399 |
Under French law, if you do not respect someone’s privacy, you may have to spend a maximum of one year in prison and pay a fine of €45,000.
|
6400 |
This punishment would send a message to the world and, the couple hope, stop paparazzi taking photos like this in the future.
|
6401 |
+
On Saturday the Irish Daily Star also published the photos. And the Italian celebrity magazine Chi published a special edition of 26 pages with the photos of the future queen.",548
|
6402 |
"Low-income countries will continue to be the most affected by human-induced climate change over the next century. They will experience gradual sea-level rises, stronger cyclones, warmer days and nights, more unpredictable rainfall, and larger and longer heatwaves, according to a recent report.
|
6403 |
The last major United Nations (UN) assessment, in 2007, predicted temperature rises of 6°C or more by the end of the century. That is now thought unlikely by scientists, but average land and sea temperatures are expected to continue rising throughout this century, possibly reaching 4°C above present levels – enough to devastate crops and make life in many cities unbearably hot.
|
6404 |
As temperatures rise and oceans warm, tropical and subtropical regions will see sharp changes in annual rainfall, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released in Stockholm and published online in September.
|
|
|
6411 |
Weather disasters are also more likely in a warmer world, the report suggests. Although the global frequency of tropical cyclones is expected to decrease or remain unchanged, they may become more intense, with stronger winds and heavier rainfall.
|
6412 |
Life in many developing-country cities could become unbearable, especially as urban temperatures are already far above those in surrounding countryside. Much higher temperatures could reduce the length of the growing period in some parts of Africa by up to 20%, the report said.
|
6413 |
The charity Oxfam predicted that world hunger would worsen because climate changes inevitably hurt crop production and reduce incomes. They said the number of people at risk of hunger might rise by 10% to 20% by 2050.
|
6414 |
+
“The changing climate is already jeopardizing gains in the fi ght against hunger, and it looks like it will get worse,” said Oxfam. “A hot world is a hungry world”.",549
|
6415 |
"In Iceland, you can be called Aagot, Arney or Ásfríður; Baldey, Bebba or Brá. Dögg, Dimmblá, Etna and Eybjört are fine and so are Frigg, Glódís, Hörn and Ingunn. Jórlaug is OK, as are Obba, Sigurfljóð, Úranía and Vagna. But you cannot, as a girl in Iceland, be called Harriet.
|
6416 |
“The whole situation,” said Tristan Cardew, “is really rather silly.” With his Icelandic wife, Kristin, Cardew is appealing against a decision by the National Registry in the capital Reykjavik not to renew their ten-year-old daughter Harriet’s passport because it does not recognize her first name.
|
6417 |
Since the registry does not recognize the name of Harriet’s 12-year-old brother Duncan either, the two children have, until now, travelled on passports identifying them as Stúlka and Drengur Cardew: Girl and Boy Cardew. “But, this time, the authorities have decided to apply the letter of the law,” Cardew, a British-born cook who moved to Iceland in 2000, said. “And that says no official document will be issued to people who do not bear an approved Icelandic name.”
|
|
|
6421 |
For the 5,000 or so children born in Iceland each year, the committee reportedly receives about 100 applications and rejects about half under a 1996 law aimed mainly at preserving the Icelandic language. Among its requirements are that given names must be “capable of having Icelandic grammatical endings”, may not “conflict with the linguistic structure of Iceland” and should be “written in accordance with the ordinary rules of Icelandic spelling”.
|
6422 |
What this means in practice is that names containing letters that do not officially exist in Iceland’s 32-letter alphabet, such as “c”, are out. Similarly, names unable to accommodate the endings required by the different cases used in Icelandic are also routinely turned down. “That was the problem with Harriet,” said Cardew.
|
6423 |
The country’s naming laws have been criticized in recent years: in 2013, Blær – “Light Breeze” – Bjarkardóttir Rúnarsdottir won the right to be officially known by her given name, as opposed to “Girl”, when a court ruled that denying her was a violation of the Icelandic constitution. The former mayor of Reykjavik, Jón Gnarr, has also called Iceland’s naming law “unfair, stupid and against creativity”.
|
6424 |
+
The Cardews could get round Harriet’s problem by giving her an Icelandic middle name. “But it’s a bit late for that and way too silly,” said Cardew. “Are they saying they don’t want us here?”",550
|
6425 |
"An atmosphere of melancholy and changing times pervades the opening to the final series of Downton Abbey. The year is 1925 and there are already the first rumblings of the economic storms that will blight the end of the decade. The neighbours are selling up their own stately home, while Lord Grantham seeks to cut back on servants after declaring that under-butlers are no longer affordable.
|
6426 |
But at the real Downton Abbey, Highclere Castle – a stately home owned by George “Geordie” Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon – the financial outlook has rarely been brighter. According to Lady Fiona Carnarvon, the huge global success of Downton has funded a rolling programme of building repairs aimed at safeguarding Highclere for the next generation.
|
6427 |
“It’s been an amazing magic carpet ride for all of us,” she said. “It’s given us a wonderful marketing platform, an international profile. I’m hugely grateful. My husband and I love the house, and the people here. Now, without doubt, it is loved by millions of other people.”
|
|
|
6436 |
Lady Carnarvon is still keen to emphasize that the long-term future of Highclere is not necessarily secure. “The bottom line is quite thin,” she said. “The programme has allowed us to spend faster on the buildings, have the follies restored.”
|
6437 |
In the pipeline is a Tutankhamun centenary event in 2022, 100 years after the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, together with Howard Carter, discovered the tomb that revolutionized our understanding of Egyptology. Another opportunity to keep Highclere in the public mind is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who designed the grounds.
|
6438 |
“What you do is never sit on your laurels. Every single day, don’t take anything for granted,” said Lady Carnarvon. “For all these great houses, you have to invest in them. And, there has been a deficit since the 1930s. Perhaps, in the past, an estate and house defined and supported the family and their lifestyle but, today, it is quite the reverse: the challenge is how Geordie and I seek to support and look after Highclere.
|
6439 |
+
“From my point of view, I’ve tried to persuade people it is fun and have specific events they can engage with, not just a wander around a dusty house. We have to compete with attractions like the London Dungeon.”",551
|
6440 |
"As colourful fish were swimming past him off the Greek coast, Cathal Redmond was convinced he had taken some great photos with his first underwater camera. But, when he looked at the results on dry land, the images were brown and murky. Having taken the pictures while holding his breath underwater, he blamed the limited time he had to set up the shots. All he needed, the industrial designer thought, was a little more time to properly capture the fish in their natural environment.
|
6441 |
He vowed to make the little extra time needed a reality and the result is his invention of the Express Dive – a refillable air storage device, held in the mouth, that lets users swim underwater for two minutes. It is aimed at bridging the gap between snorkelling, with its limited scope, and scuba diving, which gives divers the freedom to breathe underwater but at the cost of using cumbersome and expensive gear. The prototype of the invention – which is still in the initial stages of testing individual parts – looks like a cross between a scuba mouthpiece and a water bottle.
|
6442 |
“I wanted to enable people to do more. So, rather than just get in underwater and spend 30 seconds holding their breath, I wanted to do a little bit more than they were able to do,” says Redmond, 27. In 2006, the Irish designer completed a scuba-diving course and loved the feeling of being able to breathe underwater and observe fish in their natural environment. Less enjoyable, however, were the fins, the weight belt, the wetsuit, air tank, mask and all the other equipment.
|
|
|
6446 |
The electrics are shielded from the water in the casing and are recharged using inductive power transfer – a system using an electromagnetic field, similar to the pads which can wirelessly charge mobile phones, so that there is no need for exposed wires.
|
6447 |
Redmond says the mouthpiece feels similar to using a snorkel. He likens it to an extension of the lungs in that the user is taking a deep breath and then using it underwater. “It is an extension of the body’s capacity to store air,” he says. The prototype, made from high-density foam, aluminium and silicone, has been tested in parts. Redmond says he has shown that the motor can compress two minutes’ worth of air into the unit and that the design can be effectively held in the diver’s mouth. What he has not yet done is test the device on a diver, fully submerged for two minutes. But, with enough testing, Redmond is confident he can get a fully functioning device that will not endanger swimmers underwater.
|
6448 |
Redmond recently came runner-up for the International James Dyson Award, which will give him £5,000 to further develop the project. Early indications are that the device would be priced at £280, he says, and it is likely to weigh anywhere from 1kg to 3kg depending on the safety features needed.
|
6449 |
+
To anyone who thinks two minutes of air is no more than a minor improvement on snorkelling, Redmond says it could make all the difference underwater. The typical swimmer can hold their breath for about 40 seconds while underwater, he says. “Two minutes is not a lot of time but it is a lot longer than that,” he says.",552
|
6450 |
"Benjamin Carle is 96.9% made in France, including even his underpants and socks. Unfortunately, six Ikea forks, a Chinese guitar and unsourced wall paint stopped him being declared a 100% economic patriot, but nobody is perfect.
|
6451 |
Carle, 26, decided, in 2013, to see if it was possible to live using only French-made products for ten months as part of a television documentary.
|
6452 |
He got the idea after the Minister for Economic Renewal, Arnaud Montebourg, asked the French people to buy French products to save the country’s industrial production sector.
|
|
|
6467 |
Carle’s conclusion: “It’s not entirely possible or even desirable to live 100% ‘made in France’, particularly in terms of new technology. But that wasn’t the point.
|
6468 |
“This wasn’t about French nationalism or patriotism. It was trying to show that we should reflect about the way we buy and make different choices, and that applies in all countries. If we want to save jobs and industries, wherever we are, we might think about supporting them.
|
6469 |
“A T-shirt is more expensive in France but I can be sure it has been produced by workers who are correctly paid and have good working conditions. I cannot be sure about a cheaper T-shirt produced in Asia or Morocco. People could do more as consumers.”
|
6470 |
+
Carle says he hopes to continue supporting French industry and producers, but not 100%. “It is a full-time job just finding the stuff,” he said.",553
|
6471 |
"Robert Mysłajek stops dead. Between two paw prints on a muddy mountain track, the scientist finds what he is looking for. “Droppings!” he enthuses. Wolf sightings are so rare that the sighting of their faeces marks a good day, even for a seasoned tracker.
|
6472 |
But it is getting easier. There are now an estimated 1,500 wolves in Poland. The number has doubled in 15 years. Wolves are – along with the brown bear, the lynx and the wolverine – Europe’s last large predator carnivores. Conservationists from Britain, Germany and the Netherlands are beating a path here to find out how the country has saved this protected species, slandered even in fairy tales.
|
6473 |
Bits of bone and hair protrude from the precious black faeces. “It ate a red deer,” says the University of Warsaw biologist. “In my lab, I can tell you all about this wolf – not only its diet but its gender, sexual habits, age, state of health and family connections.”
|
|
|
6492 |
Being a wolf advocate is not easy. “It is not as if you can argue to the politicians that wolves are a big tourist attraction. Most tourists want to see the animals but wolves stay away from humans. They have a tremendously sensitive sense of smell.”
|
6493 |
The 12 British animal science students leave the Polish Carpathians without a wolf sighting; just photographs of paw prints and droppings. Entwisle is convinced that Scotland will never be able to match Poland’s success.
|
6494 |
“It would be amazing for the environment to have them back because of the problem of too many deer. But it would just not be viable because of the roads and sheep.
|
6495 |
+
“There would be problems with farmers. We had our industrial revolution too long ago. We ruined it for ourselves. In Britain, we like predators to be far away and to watch them on television, said Entwisle.",554
|
6496 |
"Introduction
|
6497 |
Did you know that, in the UK, there is no law that says restaurants have to pass on tips to staff?
|
6498 |
A new government report asked workers, employers and customers what they thought about tipping. After reading the report, the UK government says it wants to change the rules to make sure that low-paid workers get the tips that customers leave for them.
|
|
|
6515 |
I think they treat waiters best in ... Italy
|
6516 |
Where I used to work, waiters kept 80% of cash tips and 40% of card tips. The rest went to the other staff in the restaurant.
|
6517 |
It’s hard to say how much I earn in a shift; maybe about £40. It can make a big difference. Sometimes, waiters need a good night to be able to pay their rent.
|
6518 |
+
They have got tipping right in Italy, where customers don’t add a big tip but usually round up their bill so, if their meal is €19, they leave a €20 note and don’t ask for change.",555
|
6519 |
"McDonald’s is the world’s biggest burger chain and a global emblem of American consumer capitalism. But, these days, the golden arches of McDonald’s are looking a little tarnished. After a decade of expansion, customers around the world don’t seem to be ‘lovin’ it’ any more. McDonald’s has revealed that worldwide sales dropped by 3.3% from 2013. The set of results were described as awful.
|
6520 |
The company has problems almost everywhere. In China, sales fell by 23% because local media showed workers at a local supplier claiming to use out-of-date beef and chicken in McDonald’s and KFC products. In Europe, sales are down by 4%, mostly because of problems in Ukraine and the anti-western mood in Russia. Around 200 of McDonald’s 450 restaurants in Russia are being investigated by health inspectors and ten have been closed.
|
6521 |
But it is in the US, where McDonald’s has around 40% of its restaurants, where the crisis is deepest. Almost 60 years since Ray Kroc opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, consumers are losing their appetite for a Big Mac and fries.
|
|
|
6528 |
In the UK, McDonald’s has turned around its business, which makes Britain a rare bright spot for the company. A competitive breakfast menu, improved coffee and free wi-fi have given McDonald’s a broad appeal in the UK, said consultant Peter Martin, adding that 56% of British adults have visited a McDonald’s restaurant at least once in the last six months.
|
6529 |
Executives are promising to fight misconceptions about its food in its home market. Thompson has promised more organic food and custom-made burgers but, to cut down queues, he also wants to introduce simpler menus. Analysts are not sure how the company can solve the problem of simpler menus and greater choice over fillings.
|
6530 |
“They want to simplify the menu but enhance its ability to customize and that sounds tricky,” said Mark Kalinowski at Janney Capital Markets. Only four out of McDonald’s 14,000 US restaurants had so far tested “build your own burger”, he said. “Right now, we are sceptical; we would like to see more detail.”
|
6531 |
+
Meanwhile, despite the declining sales, the chain continues to expand globally: by the end of 2014, it expects to have 1,400 new restaurants. Kalinowski expects McDonald’s market share will continue to shrink but he, too, warned against writing off the company. “We think it will be number one for not just years but decades to come.”",556
|
6532 |
"The problem with Google Glasses, says Takahito Iguchi, is that they’re not cool. He may be right. There’s already a website dedicated to people wearing them looking either ridiculous or smug or, more often, both. Search Google Images and one of the first hits is a picture of a large, naked man wearing them in the shower. And it’s this that Iguchi, a Japanese entrepreneur, hopes may be Google’s Achilles’ heel. He is launching a competitor that is a bit more stylish. A bit more Blade Runner. A bit more Japanese.
|
6533 |
Iguchi’s augmented reality glasses aren’t really glasses – they are more a single piece of metal with a camera and a tiny projector. They are called Telepathy One and, since they were presented to the public for the first time in Austin, Texas, they have attracted $5m of venture capital. Like Glass, Telepathy One is due to launch in 2014.
|
6534 |
It’s a simplified version of Google Glass. Glass has a range of uses – you can surf the internet, read emails, take photographs – but Telepathy will be “more of a communication device”. Connected via Bluetooth to your phone, it will focus on real-time visual and audio sharing. You’ll be able to post photos and videos from your line of vision on Facebook or send them as an email, or see and speak to a video image of a friend.
|
|
|
6538 |
“Tokyo is very rich in fashion and culture but it’s still an island. It’s isolated. There is not any way to expand. Whereas, in Silicon Valley, everyone is from everywhere. It’s where you come to connect globally.” The hardware will be made in Japan, and he is putting together a team of software engineers in the US to develop its applications.
|
6539 |
Building the prototype of Telepathy One was easy, Iguchi says. “We have every sort of technology in Tokyo. It is presenting it to the world that is the challenge.” The top manufacturers all want to work with him, he says, because they have the technology, they just struggle to sell it. “There needs to be a story to the product. Like Apple did with the iPod – 1,000 songs in your pocket. And Steve Jobs was inspired by Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony, and he inspired me, so maybe it will come in a circle.”
|
6540 |
Maybe. He certainly has the confidence of Jobs, but, with a thick Japanese accent, he sometimes struggles to make himself understood, a fact that may have contributed to his idea for Telepathy One. When he went to London to present the headset, he stayed in an Airbnb. “The house owner was not my friend but I talked with him for three hours, and now he is my friend. That is how long it takes to understand each other, to share our feelings, and background, and career. Maybe Telepathy makes that quicker. If you are getting info from the cloud and social networks, that will happen more easily.”
|
6541 |
+
Iguchi hopes that seeing somebody else’s literal point of view will help you to see their metaphorical point of view. As a student, he explains, he studied philosophy by day and taught himself how to code by night. “And, one day, I opened the door of my apartment and I suddenly realized that everything is code. Everything is coded and is shareable between humans. And everything can be encoded and decoded. And, if code is exchangeable between humans, that will end all war.”",557
|
6542 |
"n 2005, BlackBerry brought instant messaging to the mobile phone and the company was just entering its period of success. Then, the iPhone was still just an idea and BlackBerry’s innovations made its smartphone one of Canada’s biggest exports.
|
6543 |
Six years later, in the summer of 2011, there were riots in London and other UK cities. Rioters used BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and politicians wanted the service to shut down. But, two years later, the users themselves are leaving BBM.
|
6544 |
Fewer and fewer people want BlackBerry phones. There are now many alternative products, from Facebook’s and Apple’s instant messaging applications to independent apps such as WhatsApp and Kik (which is also Canadian). They are free to download and use, and they use the internet to swap text messages, pictures, voice clips, 'stickers' and even videos between most types of phones.
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|
|
6547 |
Messaging is now becoming visual. Photos that are uploaded to Instagram get instant comments and Snapchat’s pictures have opened a world of other possibilities. Like BBM, all of these services are free for any phone with an internet connection. But, in 2011, BBM was so powerful that it helped to start a revolution in Egypt; and at the time of the London riots, people used BBM, not their televisions, to find out quickly what was happening.
|
6548 |
Nearly 80% of young smartphone owners regularly use a social networking application but two-thirds use more than one. 60% of 16- to 24-year-olds use Facebook every day, but 46% use alternatives. “It’s much more complex,” says Benedict Evans, a digital media specialist. “All of these apps use your smartphone. Apps rise and fall like fireworks. Some, like Instagram, last; others just disappear.”
|
6549 |
Thirteen-year-old Bennett has three phones. He keeps his BlackBerry for messaging, he uses an iPhone to play games, and he makes phone calls on an Android phone. His friends are still on BBM. At the touch of a few buttons, you can send a single BlackBerry message to several hundred people; on WhatsApp, the limit is 50. But, for Bennett, Instagram is now a major social network. “Instagram is Facebook without parents,” he says. “Facebook is now for older people.” The low cost of buying and using a BlackBerry is still an advantage. Anyone with a second-hand phone and a £7-a-month deal from a telecoms company can use unlimited BBM messages. But people no longer trust the privacy of BBM. Business people, revolutionaries, demonstrators and rioters used to believe that their messages were secret. The arrests that followed the riots showed that wasn’t true.
|
6550 |
+
In the rich London district of South Kensington, the older pupils at one school all have Apple phones. They all use WhatsApp. For many, BBM is a distant memory. “I still have a Blackberry, but I’m the only one,” says one teenager. And how does that make him feel? “Isolated,” he says.",558
|
6551 |
"He arrived – in his own words, in 2005 – as “a simple, humble worker in God’s vineyard”. And on a grey, cold, blustery Monday in February, Pope Benedict XVI signed off in the same fashion: like an elderly labourer who can no longer ignore the pains in his back; who can no more count on the strength of his arms. Characteristically for this most traditionally minded of pontiffs, he made his excuses in Latin. The first German pope in modern times timed his departure to the minute. “From 28 February 2013, at 20.00 hours”, he told a gathering of cardinals in the Vatican, “the see of Rome, the see of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new supreme pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.”
|
6552 |
Among those present was a Mexican prelate, Monsignor Oscar Sanchéz Barba, from Guadalajara. He was in Rome to be told the date for a canonization in which he has played a leading role. “We were all in the Sala del Concistoro in the third loggia of the Apostolic Palace,” he said. “After giving the date for the canonization, the twelfth of May, the Pope took a sheet of paper and read from it.
|
6553 |
“We were all left …” – Sanchéz Barba looked around him in the Bernini colonnade that embraces St Peter’s Square, grasping for the word, as speechless as the “princes of the church” who had just heard the man they believe to be God’s representative on earth give up on the job. “The cardinals were just looking at one another,” Sanchéz Barba said.
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|
|
6555 |
John Thavis, who spent 30 years reporting on the Holy See and whose book, The Vatican Diaries, is soon to be published, said he had had an intuition the Pope might be about to resign and timed his return to Rome from the US accordingly. A fellow-Vatican watcher confirmed this to be the case. Thavis noted that in the book-length interview Benedict gave to a German journalist, published as Light of the World in 2010, he had made it clear he considered it would be right to go if he felt he were no longer up to the job. “I asked myself: if I were Pope and wanted to resign, when would I choose? He has completed his series of books and most of his projects are off the ground. What is more, there were no dates in his calendar of events he personally had to attend. I thought the most likely date was 22 February, which is the Feast of the Chair of St Peter. So I got it wrong.”
|
6556 |
The line emerging from the Vatican within hours of the announcement was that the Pope’s decision was a brave one. By this account, Benedict – never one to shrink from utterances and decisions that shocked – had taken it upon himself to bring his church face to face with reality: the reality that contemporary medicine can keep men alive far beyond the age at which they are up to grappling with the demands of running a vast global organization. Thavis agreed: “What I find particularly courageous is that he is prepared to say now, when he is not sick, that he is going; and that he’s doing it because he’s tired and not because he’s particularly ill.” But is that the whole story? Does he know more about his state of health than the Vatican has so far made public?
|
6557 |
Benedict’s own account of his reasons makes it clear that he took into account not only his physical, but also his psychological condition: “In order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.” Other theories will no doubt swirl around the Vatican in the days and weeks ahead, just as they did following the death of Pope John Paul I in 1978, 33 days after his election. Already there is speculation that something was about to come out about Benedict’s past. The Vatican will just as predictably dismiss such notions with contempt. But they are understandable all the same, for the transcendental importance of what Benedict has done cannot be overstated.
|
6558 |
+
Emerging from St Peter’s Basilica, Julia Rochester, from London, who described herself as a lapsed Catholic, was still turning over the implications of the Pope’s resignation. “If you’re God’s chosen one, how do you choose not be chosen?” she mused. It is a question many practising Catholics will be asking of their priests in the weeks ahead. In his first speech as Pope – humbly disclaiming his fitness for the task – Benedict said: “I am consoled by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act, even with insufficient tools.” At some point in the last eight years, it would seem, he ceased to believe that was true.",559
|
6559 |
"From glow-in-the-dark trees to underground bike sheds and solar-powered bins, we look at some of the more leftfield solutions to help make our cities more livable.
|
6560 |
City living has many upsides but a sustainable lifestyle is increasingly not among them. Pollution, traffic and loss of green spaces are just some of the daily trials that city-dwellers have to deal with.
|
6561 |
Step forward the inventors. We consider ten of the wackier solutions to making our cities more livable.
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|
|
6578 |
9 Smart rubbish bins
|
6579 |
Forget gas-guzzling dumper trucks and smelly skips. City authorities around the world are now turning to solar-powered “trash compactors” to keep litter off the streets. The 150-gallon-capacity rubbish bins are equipped with a motor that pushes down the rubbish when it nears the top. The motor is powered by solar panels embedded in the lid. The newest BigBelly bins include a wireless monitoring system that notifies rubbish collectors when the bins are full.
|
6580 |
10 Spray paint
|
6581 |
+
Finally, desperate times may sometimes call for desperate measures. That’s clearly what was going through the minds of authorities in Chengdu, one of China’s fastest growing cities. To brighten up the place, the municipal landscaping department has taken to spraying the yellowing grass green. Use of the non-toxic green spray has now spread to Tianjin and a host of other cities in China’s north-west.",560
|
6582 |
"In Canada’s Arctic, summers are marked by a bright light that bathes the treeless tundra for more than 20 hours a day. For some, it’s a welcome change from the unrelenting darkness of winter. But, for the small but growing Muslim community of Iqaluit, Nunavut, life in the land of the midnight sun poses a real challenge during the month of Ramadan, during which Muslims typically fast from sunrise to sunset.
|
6583 |
“I haven’t fainted once,” said 29-year-old Abdul Karim, one of the few in the city who has carefully timed his Ramadan fast to the Arctic sun since moving from Ottawa in 2011. This year, that means eating at about 1.30am before the sun rises and breaking his fast at about 11pm when the sun sets. “The only reason to stop would be if it hurts my health,” Karim said. Pointing to his sizable frame, he laughed as he added: “But, looking at my condition, I don’t think fasting will hurt me.”
|
6584 |
As the end of Ramadan draws near for Muslims around the world, much of the holy month’s focus on community work, prayer and reflection has been a constant in communities around the world. But in Iqaluit and the other Muslim communities in the Arctic, the long days have forced a shift in how the element of fasting is approached.
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|
6587 |
It’s a scene that plays out across Canada’s northernmost mosques during Ramadan, as Muslim communities wrestle with the country’s unique geography. The 300 or so Muslims in Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories, have several options when it comes to fasting during Ramadan, said Nazim Awan, president of the Yellowknife Islamic Centre, with exceptions made for those who are pregnant or ill. “There might be some superhumans who want to fast for 23 hours, but the other option is to follow the intent and spirit of fasting by following nearby cities or they can follow the times of Mecca and Medina.” In recent years, much of the community has opted to follow the Ramadan timetable of Edmonton, in Alberta. Some, such as Awan – a father of two young children, including a 12-year-old who recently started fasting – follow the timings of Mecca. He hopes to encourage his son with the more manageable timetable of about 15 hours of fasting as compared with about 18 hours in Edmonton.
|
6588 |
“If I fast Yellowknife or Edmonton times, my son might say, 'Papa, you are really insane. What are you doing?'” he said. Faced with the impossibility of following the local movements of the sun, the 100 or so Muslims in Inuvik, a small town that sits 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, have also been following Edmonton’s timetable. “We currently have 24 hours a day of sun,” said Ahmad Alkhalaf. “There’s no sunrise or sunset.”
|
6589 |
The adherence to Edmonton’s schedule was already in place in 2001 when he moved from Toronto to the small northern community of 3,500 people. “My first Ramadan here was in December. There’s no sun at that time; it’s dark all day and night. So we used Edmonton time.” At times, it can be psychologically challenging to follow the clock rather than what is happening outside, Alkhalaf said. “You’re supposed to break your fast when it’s dusk and we eat when the sun is out. It’s not usual to have iftar [the meal breaking the fast] when the sun is up,” he said. In Inuvik, where much of the population is Inuit, the Muslim community has sought to strike a balance between Ramadan and the local culture and traditions. The iftar meal includes dates and rich curries – as well as local game such as reindeer, prepared in accordance with Islamic law. “We make a soup or curry … but instead of using beef, we use reindeer.”
|
6590 |
+
In Iqaluit, as the Muslim community prepares to mark the end of Ramadan, some reflect that 2016’s timing – stretching across some of the longest days of the year – has made it one of the more challenging of recent years. It’s particularly true for those like Karim who have determinedly followed the local sunrise and sunset. But, his efforts will be rewarded years from now, said Karim, thanks to the lunar calendar. Ramadan will eventually fall during winter, which, in Iqaluit, sees the sun rise and set within a few hours each day. “I’ll follow those hours, too,” he said with a laugh. “Oh yes, definitely.”",561
|
6591 |
"wo mothers in South Africa have discovered they are raising each other’s daughters after they were mistakenly switched at birth in a hospital in 2010.
|
6592 |
But, while one of the women wants to correct the error and reclaim her biological child, the other is refusing to give back the girl she has raised as her own, posing a huge legal dilemma.
|
6593 |
Henk Strydom, a lawyer for one of the mothers, who cannot be identified because of a court order, described the inadvertent swap as a travesty and tragedy that is unlikely to have a happy ending.
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|
|
6605 |
The families are of Zulu ethnicity and so Zulu tradition, culture and customary law will be a factor, she added. It is also still possible the ex- partner of the mother taking legal action could be the biological father of the girl who was switched.
|
6606 |
It is not the first child-swap case to come to light in South Africa. In 1995, two mothers were awarded damages after their sons, born in 1989, were accidentally switched at the Johannesburg hospital where they were born.
|
6607 |
In 2009, in Oregon in the United States, Dee Ann Angell and Kay Rene Reed discovered that they had been mistakenly mixed up at birth in 1953 when a nurse brought them back from bathing. In 2013, in Japan, a 60-year-old man swapped at birth from his rich parents to a poor family was given compensation. He grew up on welfare and became a truck driver, whereas his biological siblings – and the boy brought up in his place – attended private secondary schools and universities.
|
6608 |
+
Bruce Laing, a clinical psychologist in Johannesburg, said the long-term effects of a baby swap could be “profound”, “terrifying” and “incredibly traumatizing”. He told The Times of South Africa: “An increasingly complicated situation is that some resentment towards a child that is not yours might occur. The parents might always be thinking 'What if?'”",562
|
6609 |
"According to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO), 35.6% of all women around the world will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, usually from a male partner. The report reveals the shocking extent of attacks on women from the men with whom they share their lives, with 30% of women being attacked by partners. It also finds that a large proportion of murders of women – 38% – are carried out by their partners.
|
6610 |
The highest levels of violence against women are in Africa, where nearly half of all women – 45.6% – will suffer physical or sexual violence. In low- and middle-income Europe, the proportion is 27.2%. However, wealthier nations are not always safer for women – a third of women in high-income countries (32.7%) will experience violence at some stage in their lives. 42% of the women who experience violence suffer injuries, which can bring them to the attention of healthcare staff. That, says the report, is often the first opportunity for violence in the home to be discovered and for the woman to be offered help. Violence has a significant effect on women’s health. Some arrive at hospital with broken bones, while others suffer pregnancy-related complications and mental illness.
|
6611 |
The two reports from the WHO – one is on the extent of violence, the other offers guidelines to healthcare staff on helping women – are the work of Dr Claudia Garcia-Moreno, lead specialist in gender, reproductive rights, sexual health and adolescence at WHO, and Professor Charlotte Watts, an epidemiologist who specializes in gender, violence and health, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
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|
|
6615 |
The authors say that their previous research shows that better-educated women and working women are less likely to suffer violence, although not in all regions. There is a need to question social norms, said Watts. “What is society’s attitude concerning the acceptability of certain forms of violence against women?” she asked. “In some societies, it is not OK – but not all.”
|
6616 |
“I think the numbers are a wake-up call for all of us to pay more attention to this issue,” said Garcia-Moreno. Over the past ten years, there has been increasing recognition of the problem, she said, but “we have to recognize that it is a complex problem. We don’t have a vaccine or a pill”.
|
6617 |
The new WHO clinical and policy guidelines recommend healthcare staff should be trained to recognize the signs of domestic violence and sexual assault, but they do not recommend general screening – that is, asking every woman who arrives in a clinic whether she has been subjected to violence.
|
6618 |
+
“But, if you see a woman coming back several times with injuries she doesn’t mention, you should ask about domestic violence,” said Garcia-Moreno. “When I was training in medical school, it wasn’t something you learned or knew about. Years later, I was sometimes in a situation where I could tell there was something else wrong with the woman I was interviewing, but didn’t know that domestic violence was the issue. Now, I think I would do the interview very differently.”",563
|
6619 |
"At the beginning of the final series of the TV programme, Downton Abbey, there is a feeling of sadness and everyone knows things are changing. The year is 1925 and Downton Abbey’s neighbours are selling their stately home. At Downton Abbey, Lord Grantham wants to reduce the number of servants.
|
6620 |
The real Downton Abbey is Highclere Castle – a stately home owned by George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon. At Highclere Castle, they have more money than before. Lady Fiona Carnarvon says that the huge success of Downton all around the world has paid for building repairs at the castle.
|
6621 |
“It’s been an amazing magic carpet ride for all of us,” she said. “I’m very grateful. My husband and I love Highclere Castle. Now, millions of other people love it.”
|
|
|
6628 |
“Downton Abbey expresses a certain view of Britain. It is a fantasy world, based in a particular time in history. It’s the first TV period drama that everyone knows and talks about.”
|
6629 |
Lady Carnarvon says that the long-term future of Highclere might not be secure. But, she says, “The programme has allowed us to spend faster on the buildings.”
|
6630 |
Highclere Castle plans a Tutankhamun event in 2022, 100 years after the 5th Earl of Carnarvon went to Egypt with Howard Carter and discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb. Another event is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who designed the grounds.
|
6631 |
+
“Every single day, don’t take anything for granted,” said Lady Carnarvon. “You have to invest in these great houses. I’ve tried to show people it is fun. We have special events, not just a walk around a dusty house.”",564
|
6632 |
"Like veins carrying the lifeblood of a city, a subway system teems with billions of inhabitants: the bacteria of Swiss cheese and kimchi, of bubonic plague and drug-proof bugs and of human skin. Now, for the first time, scientists have started to catalogue and map the bacteria coursing through a city’s subway – and they have found a wealth of curious results.
|
6633 |
Dr Christopher Mason, a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medical College, led a team that, for 18 months, swabbed the New York City subway system for the microscopic life forms that cover its turnstiles, seats, ticket booths and stations. In what Mason called “the first city-scale genetic profile ever”, his team found meningitis at Times Square, a trace of anthrax on the handhold of a train carriage and bacteria that cause bubonic plague on a rubbish bin and ticket machine at stations in uptown Manhattan.
|
6634 |
In research published in the journal Cell Systems, the team strongly downplayed the findings of plague and anthrax, noting the extremely small trace of the latter, that rats likely carried the former and that no one has fallen ill with plague in or around New York for years.
|
|
|
6644 |
“If anything,” he added, “I’ve become much more confident riding the subway.”
|
6645 |
Many findings made sense: heavily trafficked stations like Grand Central and Times Square had more bacteria and more diversity among them; the subway was most enriched for bacteria associated with skin. The Bronx, with its diverse neighbourhoods and stations, had the greatest diversity of bacteria; Staten Island, with just three stops, had the lowest.
|
6646 |
The researchers found marine bacteria at South Ferry, a station that flooded during Hurricane Sandy – but they were surprised to note the species included some normally associated with Antarctica and fish.
|
6647 |
+
The next steps, Mason said, are studies of other cities, which have begun in Paris, São Paolo and Shanghai, and continued studies of New York, for instance to see how the microbiome changes with the seasons. He said he hoped the research would provide “a baseline” of research for health officials and geneticists, and could help health officials to be better prepared to prevent and track diseases and pathogens.",565
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