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Nepochybně se vám bude hodit slovní zásoba zejména z článků, které mají celkem podivné názvy, např. PlayStation banned in prisons,   Man injured by flying sausage,   Inventor of instant noodles passes away,   Amsterdam pet shop owner creates beer for dogs,   CBS to invest in Electric Sheep Company,   French Space Agency CNES releases UFO files .

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1  First television channel in Esperanto launches online

November 6, 2005

A new online television channel, Internacia Televido, has been launched following just over two years of fundraising and preparation. It is the first channel ever to be broadcast entirely through the international auxiliary language Esperanto, and was launched at midnight Brazilian time on Saturday night. The name means 'International Television'. The channel aims to create an international television network combining professional content with the collaboration of ordinary users from around the world. Programmes will range from news shows and documentaries to culture, educational programming and children's entertainment.

The project, supported by the World Esperanto Association amongst others, was announced in October 2003 in Sao Paulo by Brazilian entrepreneur Flavio Rebelo, whose media business CIDCON also runs the Esperanto language web portal Gangalo (www.ghangalo.com, 'Jungle') and publishes music. The original intention was to establish a 24-hour streamed online channel, with four hours of original programming per day (repeated six times daily) and a daily news bulletin. A subsequent international fundraising campaign to raise the required sum of €35,000 to establish the channel involved Rebelo speaking at several Esperanto events throughout Europe during the early months of 2004 through the support of an anonymous Asian donor.

The project failed to garner sufficient funds to meet its original deadline, but in August this year Rebelo confirmed that a scaled-down version of the project would go ahead upon the sum of €23,000 being reached. The channel currently features 90 minutes of programming daily, with one weekly news bulletin, and three waged employees instead of the intended ten. It is intended that the channel will be funded past its initial six-month period through on-air advertising revenue and further private donations, and expanded as revenue permits.

Experimental television broadcasts in Esperanto were not first made until the advent of Internet technology. A previous online Esperanto TV project (www.esperanto.tv), under the auspices of the Italian Transnational Radical Party, failed to realise a finished product. Since the 1920s, radio broadcasts have been made regularly in Esperanto by broadcasters such as RAI, China Radio International and Radio Polonia.

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2  Arctic ice levels at record low opening Northwest Passage

September 16, 2007

According to the European Space Agency (ESA), 200 satellite images from the Danish National Space Center (DNSC) indicate that the Arctic ice levels are at an all time low, since the first images taken in 1978, and as a result the Northwest Passage has completely opened up for the first time since humans began to record history.

The images have shown the melting of the ice has "dramatically increased" more than previously thought and that by 2030, all of the summer ice could be gone with the region being completely ice free by 2070. Researchers call it an "extreme" situation and say that the ice is now shrinking at a level of about three million square kilometers a year, up from one million square kilometers per year in 2005.

"The strong reduction in just one year certainly raises flags that the ice may disappear much sooner than expected," said DNSC spokesman Leif Toudal Pedersen in a statement.

The new findings have put Canada and the United States at a standoff, both laying claim to the passage because it could be a valuable resource for the shipping industry. The passage goes through the boundaries of both nations. In 1985 diplomatic relations on the passage were strained after a U.S. icebreaker passed through without the U.S. notifying Canadian officials.

As a result, the Canadian military is building two new bases at both ends of the areas they claim to be theirs. There will also be at least six new naval patrol ships built, that will be stationed in the passage.

The U.S. claims that regardless which country boundaries the passage passes through, the waterway should be open to anyone who wants to use it.

"We believe it's an international passage," said U.S. President George W. Bush.

Denmark, Norway, and Russia all also lay claim to the vast amounts of minerals, natural gas, and oil.

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3  Study claims to show difference between male and female brains

February 16, 2005

Michael Gurian, psychologist and author of "What Could He Be Thinking?", has claimed to identify approximately one hundred structural differences between male and female brains in a recent study. Gurian comments:

"Men, because we tend to compartmentalize our communication into a smaller part of the brain, we tend to be better at getting right to the issue, the more female brain (will) gather a lot of material, gather a lot of information, feel a lot, hear a lot, sense a lot."

One major structural difference that Gurian has made clear is that males generally have more activity in the mechanical centers of the brain, while women have more activity in centers of the brain dedicated to verbal communication and emotion. A clear example of this is the hypothetical situation of giving a child a toy. He explains it as such:

"That doll becomes life-like to that girl, but you give it to a two-year-old boy and you are more likely, not all the time, but you are more likely than not to see that boy try to take the head off the doll. He thinks spatial-mechanical. He's using the doll as an object."

Another expert, Dr. Marianne Legato, says it all boils down to genetics, noting that the Y chromosome (which only males carry) has "at least 21 unique genes unique to males which control many of the body's operations down to the level of the cells."

Gurian agrees that culture is significant in brain development, but argues that biology plays an equally important role. He makes a point of how the MRI scans show that the female corpus callosum, the center of the brain which regulates communication between the brain's hemispheres, is larger than the male's. On the other hand, the scans also show that information flows more freely between the hemispheres of the male brain.

The exact role that brain structure plays in behavior, however, has been an area of considerable contention in science for literally hundreds of years. Early studies in craniometry conducted by Paul Pierre Broca were used to attempt to distinguish differences between human races, though have now been dismissed as scientific racism. The nature-nurture debate has raged for centuries in a variety of forms, without yet any clear resolution as to the role in which innate biological tendencies interact with environmental conditions or willed behavior. As such, studies relating to brain structure and claims to innate behavior often generate substantial controversy.

MIT anthropologist of science Joseph Dumit's study of brain imaging in his book Picturing Personhood: Brain Scans and Biomedical Identity, noted that the apparent "transparency" of such pictures (the appearance that they can be easily interpreted by laymen, when they are often the source of ambiguity and dispute by even highly-trained neurosurgeons) has led to their proliferation as indicators of objective truth in media and in courts of law, and that such conclusions are often knowingly exaggerated by the specialists creating the images for better visual effect.

The timing of Gurian's book comes on the heels of another controversy over gender differences sparked by comments made by Harvard president Lawrence Summers, who blamed low numbers of women in the sciences on genetic differences. Summers has been criticized by a large number of academics and scientists, as well as by many news publications, in the wake of what he was reported as saying during a conference on January 14.

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4  European Space Agency seeks volunteers for Mars simulation

June 28, 2007

The European Space Agency (ESA) is seeking volunteers who would be ready to take a part on three simulated missions to Mars.

The anticipated missions will be a joint effort from ESA and the Russian Federal Space Agency. Each crew will consist of six persons - two Europeans and four Russians. The ESA is looking for 2 crewmembers and two backups that must come from ESA member nations that participate in the ELIPS program.

The flight simulation should last between 105 to 520 days in a closed modules set of total space of 500 m3. The goal of the mission is to test the psychological stress of the long-distance travel. To make the experience as realistic as possible, the contact with the external world shall exist only via the radio with a time-delay of 40 minutes (simulating the time required for signals to travel between the Earth and Mars).

The first test of 105 days should start in middle of 2008 and the last one should start at the end 2008 or the beginning of 2009.

Interested persons can apply via an application form published on the ESA website.

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5  EU launches channel on YouTube

July 4, 2007

This weekend the European Commission launched its own channel on YouTube, a highly popular website for distributing videos made by its users.

Margot Wallström, the Commission Vice-president responsible for the communication strategy of the EU, explained that the channel on YouTube will be used to distribute informational and promotional videos about the EU.

YouTube allows users to create a "channel" in which to upload a series of videos in a dedicated, user-specific directory. The EU had used online videos before, but they did not catch on with a larger audience.

At the time of writing (July 4, 2007 at 21:25 UTC), the channel contained 47 videos, which were watched approximately 2.5 million times in total. A controversial video entitled "Film lovers will love this!" garnered over 1.8 million views alone. The video contains short segments of several successful movies whose production was funded by European Commission, the segments show couples undressing, kissing and reaching orgasm. It is intended to promote knowledge about the Media Program of the European Commission and its results.

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6  Beijing plans $242B freeway link to Taiwan

January 14, 2005

On Jan. 13, People's Republic of China Communications Minister Zhang Chunxian announced a major plan to enlarge the country's freeway system and link all of China's major cities. The project would cost about US$242 billion and take about 25 years to complete, according to CNN News. A certain portion of the plans, however, drew scoffs from both the Taiwanese government and the international press—plans including the construction of a freeway to the island of Taiwan, over 100 miles away from the Chinese mainland.

The freeway would have to overcome great odds. The length of the freeway, whether a bridge or a tunnel, would have to be much longer than any other in existence. The longest bridge in the world is the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana, USA, which is 23 miles long. Interestingly enough, the second longest bridge will be the Hangzhou Bay Bridge in China; it will span 22.3 miles when completed in 2008. The longest tunnel in the world is the Seikan Tunnel, connecting the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido at 33.4 miles.

Besides distance, the bridge would also have to withstand the frequent typhoons and earthquakes that plague the Taiwan Strait. And, according to the Central News Agency (CNA), Taiwan's government funded news service, building a freeway across the strait would cause problems with the area's "Black Tides" and "marine trench".

The biggest obstacles to building the bridge, however, may not be with nature, but rather with politics. The Beijing and Taipei governments do not maintain any official ties. Beijing claims Taiwan as part of its territory and breaks off political ties with any country that maintains political ties with Taipei. The PRC has even threatened to attack Taiwan if the island declares formal independence.

Currently it is not possible to travel directly from Taiwan to mainland China or vice versa; Taiwanese flights to and from mainland China are detoured through a third-party airport, usually Hong Kong, before continuing on. In spite of this, the announcement came at a time when representatives from Taiwan and mainland China are discussing possible direct flights—at least for the Chinese New Year.

Taiwanese leaders dismissed the announcement as propaganda. It was undoubtably seen by a few Taiwanese as an attempt on the People's Republic of China's part to annex the island.

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7  Home of Stonehenge builders found

January 30, 2007

Scientists have uncovered the largest Neolithic settlement in the United Kingdom at the Durrington Walls and believe that the village was inhabited by the people who built the Stonehenge monument.

Scientists say that the village was built around 2,600 B.C., roughly when Stonehenge was believed to have been constructed, and housed over 100 people.

Inside the areas which would have been the interior of houses at the time, scientists also found outlines of what they think were beds and cupboards or dressers. Pieces of pottery and "filthy" rubbish around the site. Animal bones, arrowheads, stone tools and other relics were also discovered.

"We've never seen such quantities of pottery and animal bone and flint. In what were houses, we have excavated the outlines on the floors of box beds and wooden dressers or cupboards," said Sheffield University archaeologist, Mike Parker Pearson.

So far, the dig has revealed at least 8 houses roughly 14-16 feet square, but scientists say that they think there may have been at least 25 altogether.

The site was likely to have been occupied only seasonally rather than year-round and evidence suggests that a lot of "partying" went on at the location.

"The animal bones are being thrown away half-eaten. It's what we call a feasting assemblage. This is where they went to party - you could say it was the first free festival. The rubbish isn't your average domestic debris. There's a lack of craft-working equipment for cleaning animal hides and no evidence for crop-processing," added Pearson.

The Durrington Walls are approximately 2 miles from the Stonehenge site.

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From Wikinews, the free news source you can write