Topic Reading-Vol.323-2/28/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,

Titanic II blueprints unveiled, but don't call it "unsinkable.

It’s hardly thinkable to build something unsinkable at any time in history, either in 1812 or two centuries later of the time the gorgeous cruise liner failed to make her maiden voyage to New York from Southampton, England. How does this bold project sound to you to rebuild a replica of the luxury liner with three distinctively separate classes with dedicated facilities and service members that takes four days to cross the Atlantic? Would you prefer taking a suit on an A380 super jumbo jet to arrive in New York looking down the Statue of Liberty through the window instead of looking it up from the deck on the ship waving hands and hats like immigrants to Ellis Island?

By the way, to keep up with the modern economy, and may be the nature (replica) of the ship as well, the replica ship is going to be built by a Chinese company.

Enjoy reading and learning about this bold move by an Australian billionaire (self-claimed).  

http://news.yahoo.com/titanic-ii-blueprints-unveiled-dont-call-unsinkable-195203971.html

Topic Reading-Vol.322-2/27/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,

Oscar’s tribute to James Bond goes bust.

How many 007 series movies have you seen and how many titles, James Bond actor, Bond’s Girls or songs of the movie series do you remember?

The actors of the handsome, elegant, sexy, intelligent, athletic and bold spy hero are all alive. It would be nice to have all of them wear black tuxedoes with a glass of dry martini in one hand and a Berretta in the other and line up on stage, Connery, Moore, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig.

Enjoy reading and learning about this 50-year-old spy movie series, their actors and songs.

http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/2013-oscars/oscar-tribute-james-bond-goes-bust-032056843.html

Topic Reading-Vol.321-2/26/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,

How Dinosaurs Grew the World's Longest Necks?

How long do you think the neck of a giant dinosaur could have been, or how many times longer was it than that of a giraffe? Some researchers say that one of those long-necked vegetarian dinosaurs was found to have as long as 15 meter-long neck, five time as long as that of an animal that lives on the ground now, the giraffe.

How could a dinosaur have such a long neck and why? Were there any advantages by having a longer neck than others? Enjoy reading and learning about a mystery of once-dominating creature on the ground of our planet. 

http://news.yahoo.com/dinosaurs-grew-worlds-longest-necks-154618663.html

 

Topic Reading-Vol.320-2/25/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,

South Korea's president-elect faces tough challenges.

In Korea, the first female president takes place on this very day for the next five years, possibly another five years if she is reelected. It seems to be a very exciting moment for many Koreans especially when the country is facing numbers of serious issues such as nuclear threat from the North, rising currency exchange rate, and the financial gap between the rich and those who aren’t.

Enjoy reading and learning about her and her new challenges. 

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/22/world/asia/south-korea-park-inauguration/index.html?hpt=hp_c5

Topic Reading-Vol.319-2/24/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,

How it will feel to wear Google Glass.

You neither have to use your smartphone to shoot a thing that you want to share with someone nor post the photo or video on facebook, you just need to wear slim eyeglasses to share the view and talk with anyone simultaneously. The eyeglasses will also show you any information or notification that you might see on your smartphone, as well as the search result you might have looked up.

Enjoy reading the text and seeing the video about this future-come-true kind of gadget by Google.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/20/tech/innovation/google-glass-video/index.html?hpt=hp_c4

 

Topic Reading-Vol.318-2/23/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,
In picking the next pope, Catholic population doesn’t equal power.

Conclave, a secretive meeting by roughly 120 eligible voters from all over the world, is a place where a new pope is elected. The number of those voters, namely cardinals who wear red hats to show their faith to God, don’t seem to represent the regional population of the religion equally, or in other words, they aren’t proportionally selected by the number of the population of nearly 1.2 billion. You don’t need a computer or even a calculator to figure out how many of the 1.2 billion total believers in the world each cardinal should represent, if it’s equally allocated.

However, history and origin of the religion seem to supersede math and reality when it comes to select a person for this most influential position.

Enjoy reading and learning about this 1,000-year-old selection process of a religious leader.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/19/in-picking-the-next-pope-catholic-population-doesnt-equal-power/?hpt=hp_c4

Topic Reading-Vol.317-2/22/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,

Report: Chinese military engaged in 'extensive cyber espionage campaign'

How serious cyber attacks or espionages could be? A US cyber security firm has released a report to show that four networks located near Shanghai stole hundreds of terabytes of data from numbers of organizations in the world for the last eight years.

The question is who or under whose directions those cyber offensives have been conducted or how much and how well they have been organized and implemented.

The Cold War was mainly between the U.S. and U.S.S.R, and new cyber war seems to be occurring between the U.S. and P.R.C.

Enjoy reading and learning about a new phase of espionage in cyberspace.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/19/technology/china-military-cybercrime/index.html?hpt=hp_t3