Topic Reading-Vol.368-4/14/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,

Chinese tourism: The good, the bad and the backlash.

A few decades ago, tourists from Japan, who had just emerged in the world tourism market from nowhere, were brightly spotlighted as they started to visit and stay popular places and spend considerable amount to money overseas. Now as the economic might and influence have been shifted from the rising sun to the once sleeping tiger, Chinese seem to be the most visiting, staying and spending tourists in the world.

And it doesn’t seem to be wise simply stereotype them just as Chinese, and there seem to be some ways to find what they really care about and want to do, like twitters and data mining.

Enjoy reading and learning how the westerners view Chinese tourists and also how to take advantage of this growing segment of the tourism market.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/09/travel/chinese-tourism-impact/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

Topic Reading-Vol.367-4/13/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,

Elephant in Ringling Circus injured in drive-by shooting in Mississippi.

Drive-by shooting, a personal attack or random shooting at people, other vehicles or properties carried out from a moving car, which often results in bystanders being shot instead of, or as well as, the intended target such as drives or passengers of other vehicles, isn’t a rare incident in America, where both possession and use of firearms are legalized and some people always carry their guns for self-defense, as they claim.

This time, an elephant of the famous circus team resting in the cage peacefully was hit in its shoulder area by a drive-by shooter. Whether the shot was an intended one or not, the poor endangered species was wounded by a bullet. Will this incident help push to pass stricter gun control laws in the gun addicted country?

Enjoy reading and learning about a rare drive-by shooting case took place in a peaceful community, waiting for the victim elephant to entice the residents.

http://news.yahoo.com/elephant-ringling-circus-injured-drive-shooting-mississippi-204204535.html

 

Topic Reading-Vol.366-4/12/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,

Navy's New Laser Weapon Blasts Bad Guys From Air, Sea.

You might have seen a laser beam fired from a gun to kill or would others, or from a spaceship to destroy its enemy ship. But such technology seems no longer only in science fiction movies. The U.S. navy is going to place its state-of-art laser weapon on some of its battle ships. How does it work? You may want to see the video clip below before or after reading the article. It looks very real.

Enjoy reading, seeing and learning about the latest and most economical weapon system available.

Video Clip:

http://www.nikkei.com/video/?bclid=67379774001&bctid=456943073002&scrl=1

Article:

http://news.yahoo.com/navys-laser-weapon-blasts-bad-215808231.html

Topic Reading-Vol.365-4/11/2013-1st Anniversary Issue

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,
Baboon sounds may hold key to origins of human speech.
It sounds quite unusual to our human’s ears but the mechanism to produce their sounds look similar to ours, that at least the researchers say about baboons live in Ethiopia.
Seeing, in this case and listening, is believing. Click the link below and enjoy seeing the video and listening to how those primates produce sounds.

Oh, by the way, this is a milestone issue, Volume 365, which means its first anniversary issue. Is this your 365^th reading of Topic Reading? If so, your continuous reading is very much appreciated.

Thanks 365 tims!

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/baboon-sounds-may-hold-key-origins-human-speech-203842576.html

Topic Reading-Vol.364-4/10/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,

Forget falling stars: NASA plans to catch an asteroid.

There are numbers of amazing experiments and missions conducted or planned by America’s proud space agency but this one is something way beyond our imagination, save for children’s bold dreams.

Are they going to use a space net or something to catch or super magnet to pull and draw an asteroid?

And once you caught one, what do you think they would do with the live asteroid?

Enjoy reading and learning about their lofty plan.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/08/us/nasa-asteroid/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Topic Reading-Vol.363-4/9/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,

Ex-Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher dies, aged 87.

There has been no other lady in politics called “iron” but this ex-prime minister of the U.K., who was also the first and only female to take the position in their history, was.

Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister of the country from 1979 to 1990, when the country went to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1982 and also when the Berlin wall collapsed in 1989.

Her extraordinary life was filmed in “The Iron Lady.”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1007029/

 

Enjoy reading and learning how the British politicians talk about her.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22067155

 

Topic Reading-Vol.362-4/8/2013

Dear MEL School’s Topic Readers,

Ban the killer robots before it's too late.

Have you ever seen a movie series “Terminator”? The nearly 30-year-old movie most clearly and visually showed how terrible, devastating and dangerous once an autonomous defense system and robot go out-of-control.

An fully autonomous system, no matter how flawlessly designed, manufactured and programmed, could go way beyond the designers’, programmers’ or users’ intentions or expectations once it is hacked, misused or faced unpredicted situations.

Enjoy reading and learning about the danger of this post nuclear or chemical weapons.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/03/opinion/killer-robots-new-arms-race/index.html?hpt=hp_c1