Topic Reading-Vol.1397-2/7/2016

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

People aged 65 to 79 'happiest of all', study suggests

On a scale of ten, how happy were you yesterday？Was it worth living?

The answers to these questions were found to vary by age group and gender, according to a survey conducted to 300,000 adults in the U.K.

While people aged 65 to 79 were found to be the happiest age group, those aged 45 to 59 showed the lowest levels of life satisfaction.

Also, women at 39 years on average showed the least happiness, and males did the same at 53 years old.

Numbers of factors need to be looked at to interpret the results, such as employment, marital status, health, physical strength, family obligations, financial burdens, social activities and pastime.

Enjoy reading and thinking what influences the most on your happiness, well-being and anxiety.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35471624

Topic Reading-Vol.1396-2/6/2016

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

Chinese woman becomes 'world's luckiest passenger'

A golden ticket to fly. This luckiest passenger in aviation history of flight CZ2833 from Wuhan to Guangzhou for her Chinese New Year holiday, found no other passengers but the crew members on the plane. She was flown and served as the only passenger during the hour-and-half flight during the busiest time for traveling in China. Not even the President of the U.S. or China can enjoy such luxury because they are always escorted by Secret Service agents or body guards, not to mention all the staff members of the administration.

Why did this wasteful extravaganza happen while over a hundred thousand of train passengers were stranded in Guangzhou railway station because of the snow?

Enjoy reading why it happened and finding how much this lucky woman paid for this luxurious trip.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35480239

Topic Reading-Vol.1395-2/5/2016

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

Australian MPs allowed to breastfeed in parliament

Taking a baby into parliament sessions. This sounds like an out-of-question issue for most of the countries. Now, what about feeding a baby during a session, breast or bottled?

This is what Australian MPs and citizens are going to witness in their parliament. Unlike Japan where a young male MP is backfired by his fellow members for his taking a paternity leave from diet (as reported yesterday in Vol.1394), Australian MPs, women or men, can now milk their babies in the parliament either bottle-feeding or breastfeeding.

You may wonder if there is any childcare service in the nation’s lawmaking house or there are any supporters to take care of the babies of the elected lawmakers.

Enjoy reading and thinking if you would vote for a candidate who says he or she will feed his or her baby during the parliament sessions.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-35471066

Topic Reading-Vol.1394-2/4/2016

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

Japan's first lawmaker to take paternity leave faces backlash

Japan’s PM is a keen advocate for women’s participation in the job market to stimulate economy while losing the workforce in a rapidly aging country. And his administration has been encouraging men to taking part in and sharing more domestic roles including child care. However, when one of his MPs tried to take a paternity leave for his first child, the poor young politician not only wasn’t praised but rather criticized by traditional fellow members.

Lawmakers don’t seem to follow the laws they make, and in some cases, they are the ones to break laws.

While Japan has a very generous paternal leave policies at 52 weeks, only 2% of male workers are said to take such leave. Traditional views still seem to hinder men from practicing this unpopular right in many Asian countries.

Enjoy reading and thinking what could make men to share more household chores.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/28/news/economy/paternity-leave-asia-japan/index.html?iid=obnetwork

Topic Reading-Vol.1393-2/3/2016

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

China Shandong: Miners rescued after 36 days

Being in a dark cave 200 meters below the ground.

Spending day and night only with three coworkers.

Having foods and drinks that are supplied through a tiny hole.

And for 36 days.

That’s what these four miners had to endure until they were rescued 36 days after the collapse of the mine at a mine in eastern Shandong province, China. It was so deep and dangerous to reach those trapped miners that it took that long for 400 rescue workers to bring them up to the ground.

Enjoy reading about this amazing rescue operation and seeing the moment of their first appearance to the ground level since the last Christmas.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35437156

Topic Reading-Vol.1392-2/2/2016

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

Google achieves AI 'breakthrough' by beating Go champion

Google won. This time is not in a search engine or smartphone battles but a board game, Go. IT is a Chinese board game that became popular over two thousand years ago. Though the rules are much simpler than other games, there are 10 times more possible choices for each move than chess.

Google’s DeepMind division challenged the European Go champion and the program won five to zero. This was achieved by a technical idea of reinforcement learning - getting computers to learn to improve their behavior to achieve goals. In fact, it learns from its mistakes. The program now plays different versions of itself millions times, and each time it learns and gets incrementally better.

It should no longer be called computer but artificial intelligence program that now could beat human intelligence and experience and possibly assist humans to make decisions.

Enjoy reading and learning what the latest artificial intelligence manes and could mean to you.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35420579

Topic Reading-Vol.1391-2/1/2016

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

We have known that Earth is round for over 2000 years

Very simple, yet people denied or didn’t accept the fact. You need neither to sail all around the globe nor go into space to see the earth to find earth is a globe.

Here are some examples that people in ancient times knew.

- the sun’s position at the same time in two different places

- the stars seen in northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere

- only the top of a faraway mountain is seen over the horizon before the rest of it

Enjoy reading and thinking how obvious and convincing these evidences are.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160126-how-we-know-earth-is-round