Topic Reading-Vol.3337-5/31/2021

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

Cat jumps from fifth floor of burning building, bounces and strolls away

Cats are good at jumping up a tree or wall. You might have even witnessed a cat jump up to the roof without difficulty. But what about jumping down? How high can they jump and land safely? Of course, cats won’t jump down from an extremely high place unless it’s necessary. Recently, a video captured a black cat jumped out of the fifth-story window of a burning building and landed elegantly in Chicago, USA. You can assume that the cat must have been so desperate that it had no choice but to make the once-in-a-lifetime live-or-burnt dive.

Enjoy watching the video of this live performance by this athletic cat.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/14/us/cat-fire-jump-scli-intl/index.html

Topic Reading-Vol.3336-5/30/2021

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

How Vienna built a gender equal city

Located at the easternmost extension of the Alps, Vienna is the cultural, economic, and political center of Austria. The historic capital of the Holy Roman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austrian Empire, and the Republic of Austria while having been the resident city of the Habsburg Dynasty, regained independence when the four-power control ended in 1955. As so many renowned composers like Mozart, Beethoven, and Strauss resided in the city and created masterpieces, many people think Vienna is a classical and conservative place. To your surprise, it is quite the opposite when it comes to gender equality. Vienna is trying to achieve gender equality in society based on equal structures, settings, and conditions for women, men, and LGBTQ. For example, almost anywhere, most of the parks you see are designed by male predominant city planners. But when women’s perspectives are included, you’ll see smaller spaces and more seating areas instead of a large football field. Interestingly, when such gender and age-sensitive designs are well made and implemented, they will look not absurd but natural, like the newly designed or renovated parks in Vienna. Also, when it comes to LGBTQ, the city came up with the first transgender crosswalk in pink, blue and white color. Surprisingly, that colorful crosswalk proposal was supported by all political parties including the most conservative.

So, if you have a chance to visit this traditional, historical, and cultural capital, you might also pay attention to their progressive attempts to be more liberal and open to any gender. (and of any religion or race?)

Enjoy reading the article and learn about

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20210524-how-vienna-built-a-gender-equal-city?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2F

Topic Reading-Vol.3335-5/29/2021

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

What happened when I ate ultra-processed food for a month

Ultra-processed food does impair your physical health and brain functions as presented in Topic Reading-Vol.3329 on May 23, 2021. But how much harm does it actually cause to your health, weight, or brain? In fact, it is estimated that over half of the energy from food comes from such processed food in the UK, where one in four adults and one in five children are obese. So, one British doctor and a TV presenter of a food program tried to find out the effects of an ultra-processed food diet for himself. Having increased ultra-processed food intake from 30 percent to 80 percent for a month, he gained seven kilograms and became overweight. He experienced poor sleep, heartburn, unhappy feelings, anxiety, sluggishness, and low libido. Sounds bad enough to realize how unhealthy processed foods are. Other studies found that consumption of ultra-processed food increases the hormone that makes you feel hungry and decrease the one that makes you feel full. Thus, people eat more and even faster because processed foods are easy to eat. Furthermore, since ultra-processed foods are carefully engineered, produced, and marketed, they are quite palatable and attractive. You can be easily addicted to such convenient and fulfilling food. What should you do?

Enjoy reading the article and find how you should manage your diet.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/van_tulleken

Topic Reading-Vol.3334-5/28/2021

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

Lego unveils first LGBTQ set ahead of Pride Month

Legos’s colorful interlocking plastic bricks are popular around the world. They consist of bricks, gears, minifigures, and various others parts. Their business soared last year because of the pandemic as people spent more time at home. Starting from June, a new set of products will be added under the LGBTQ theme, called “Everyone is Awesome,” to celebrate Pride Month. It is when the world’s LGBT communities come together and celebrate the freedom to be themselves. There will be 11 rainbow-colored figures in the 346-piece set, which is intended to include and celebrate everyone regardless of their identity of themselves and their lovers. If children grow up with such gender-neutral toys and talk and work naturally with their family members, they will have less or no prejudice or bias against LGBTQ people. In fact, other toy makers like Mattel are also introducing gender-inclusive toys. Toys are indeed an influential tool to develop children’s mindsets. It might be getting more important to have children play with toys before they start indulging in smartphones.

Enjoy reading the article and learn about this recent move by a toy giant.

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/lego-lgbtq-set-pride-intl-scli/index.html

Topic Reading-Vol.3333-5/27/2021

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

Google AI tool can help patients identify skin conditions

When a problem or trouble occurs, many people search for information on the Internet trying to find the cause and solution. For example, when you have a reddish, raised patch, or irritated area, or a shiny pink, red, pearly white, or translucent bump on your skin, you may check on the Internet what that symptom might be to decide whether you can leave it, should get some medicine, or need to have it checked by a dermatologist. In order to do the search, you describe the symptom by typing or speaking to the browser, which will then show you relevant information. In fact, there are as many as 10 billion searches for skin, hair, and nail issues on its search engine each year. But it is a bit cumbersome to describe visual and sensational symptoms. So, Google came up with an AI tool that helps spot skin, hair, and nail conditions based on the visual images that are uploaded by the patient. The dermatology assist tool can recognize over 280 skin conditions based on a dataset of 65,000 images of diagnosed conditions and millions of images. The app doesn’t diagnose the symptoms but can help doctors provide more tailored treatments to patients. Indeed, skin conditions and symptoms vary by race, age, and person. Combined ingenuity of an expert and AI may identify skin problems and gives proper treatments more appropriately

Enjoy reading the article and learn about another use helpful usage of Artificial Intelligence.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57157566

Topic Reading-Vol.3332-5/26/2021

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

Drinking any amount of alcohol causes damage to the brain, study finds

Bad news for anyone who drinks any type or any amount of alcohol. A new study among 25,000 people in the UK found that even a small amount of alcohol consumption damages the structure and function of the human brain, especially on the gray matter, which includes regions of the brain involved in muscle control, and sensory perception such as seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision making, and self-control. It was found to cause the same impact as aging, volume reduction of the brain. This means no health benefits of moderate or safe drinking to the brain as often recommended by dietitians. Indeed. Since a cure for neurodegenerative diseases hasn’t been found yet, preventing brain harm plays an important role in our brain health. In the meantime, if you enjoy some wine with your family or friends for dinner, you can enjoy the meal more and eat more slowly, which is good for both mental and physical health. So, it is you to balance your mental, physical, and brain health.

Enjoy reading the article and learn what alcohol does to your brain.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/19/health/alcohol-brain-health-intl-scli-wellness/index.html

Topic Reading-Vol.3331-5/25/2021

Dear MEL Topic Readers,

They could become more common as the planet warms

Since the beginning of the millennia, the Arctic has become warmer twice faster than the rest of the globe. For example, Alaska is now about two degrees warmer than in the early 20^th century. Because of the warming temperatures and climate change, there have been more wildfires in the Arctic regions during non-winter seasons. Though most of them usually extinguish in winter, there are some undetected wildfires under the surface that can survive the severe winter and reemerge in spring and cause more wildfires. The problem is that these regions contain huge stocks of not only trees and plants but also flammable peat. Also known as turf, peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. Since peat has a high carbon content and can burn under low moisture conditions, it burns sluggishly without flame for a long time releasing the contained CO2 into the atmosphere. Such peat burnings tend to last under the surface and never extinguish, they are called zombie fires. Now you see that the warming of arctic regions not only melts ice sheets and glaciers but also burns trees, plants, and peatland, increasing the release of more greenhouse gasses.

Enjoy reading the article and learn about what zombie fires are and do in the arctic regions.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/19/weather/zombie-fires-arctic-forests-climate-change-scn/index.html