Current Events
'Faithless Electors' Top Out at 7; Trump Officially President-elect Anne Frank Museum Floats Fresh Capture Theory Arctic Temperatures Still Rising Scientists ID Gender of Ancient Cave Painters South Korea's President Facing Multiple Indictments North Korea Wargames Coincide with South Korean Impeachment Longest Rail Tunnel Opens in Switzerland Parents Rival Teens for Screen Time Totals, Study Finds 'Godspeed, John Glenn': Famed Astronaut Dead at 95 South Korea's 1st Female President Impeached 'Faithless Electors' Sue to Protest State Law India-sized Gap in Polar Ice Totals Supreme Court to Rule on Parliament's Role in 'Brexit' Computer Science Education, One Hour at a Time Washington Monument to Shut until 2019 1,000-year-old Viking Toolbox Discovered Calf Bones Point to Evidence of Pilgrims' Settlement Driverless Truck Movement Gains Momentum in U.S. More Inductees into Toy Hall of Fame Anne Frank Poem Brings $148,000 at Auction The 'Faithless Electors' of the Electoral Process Ancient Precursor to The Thinker Unearthed in Israel Nations Agree on Plan for Emissions Monitoring Discoveries Boost Knowledge of Shakespeare Stage Milk Consumption Dates Back 9,000 Years: Study 3,800-year-old Boat Tableau Found on Egyptian Wall Largest Marine Protected Area off Antarctica Emoji on Display in NY Museum of Modern Art Rockwell Undecided Voter Painting on Auction Over the Rainbow (and Moon) at Slippers Rescue Black Sea Trawlers Discover Dozens of Shipwrecks Chips off an Expensive Block Global Agreement Targets HFC Emissions Amundsen Ship Back above Water 3D Video Puts Pompeii Banker Back into Focus Complete Woolly Mammoth Skeleton on Auction Dig at Japanese Castle Unearths Roman Coins Obama Dedicates African-American Museum Skeleton Found in Antikythera Wreckage Indigo Dye Found on 6,200-Year-Old Fabric in Peru September 18, 2016 Mary Rose Shipwreck Victim Lives Again in 3D Japanese Party Names First Female Leader Ice Hunting Grounds for Polar Bears Shrinking Protests against National Anthem Growing National Anthem Not Always at Sporting Events |
Social Studies for Kids |
Anne Frank might not have been betrayed after all, according to a new study of first- and secondhand sources. The theory of how the Franks were discovered has long been that someone phoned authorities or otherwise let them know of the Franks' hiding place. Now, the Anne Frank House museum itself has put forward the theory that it was coincidence that resulted in the Aug. 4, 1944, arrests of Anne and her family. New research by the museum has analyzed police documents and Anne's diary in detail; the result is the suggestion to consider possibilities other than betrayal. 
Archaeologists can tell the gender of someone who placed their hands on a rock wall 40,000 years ago, according to a study recently published. In the study, archaeologists from South Africa and the United Kingdom used cutting-edge technology to create an environment in which student volunteers created new hand stencils in the same way as did the Upper Paleolithic artists who placed their own hands on cave walls tens of thousands of years ago. The study included the recreation of a "portable cave" not unlike those found in Europe and Indonesia, dotted with paintings of animals and handprints.
Train service through the world's longest tunnel has begun, with the first cars rumbling through the 35-mile-long Gotthard Base tunnel underneath Switzerland. European leaders, including other heads of state, attended a ceremonial opening of the tunnel in June. French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were among those on the first train through the tunnel; other passengers included hundreds of Swiss citizens who had won tickets in a lottery. It wasn't until December 11 that the first commercial runs began. The tunnel runs deep through the Swiss Alps, from Zurich to Lugano on a route that cuts the commute or freight time by a half hour. The tunnel route bypasses the winding Gotthard Railway, which opened in 1882 and has been running at capacity for some time. 
John Glenn–famous astronaut, decorated military veteran, fearless test pilot, long-serving Congressman, and all-around American hero–has died. He was 95. Glenn is perhaps most well-known for becoming the first American to orbit the Earth. He did so as the sole occupant of the Friendship 7 spacecraft on Feb. 20, 1962, spending 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds to complete three orbits. His first words in space were these: "Zero G, and I feel fine."
It's Computer Science Education Week, time for the Hour of Code. This year, youngsters in more than 180 countries will take part in a worldwide drive to encourage more people to get interested in computer science, by delving into writing computer code. Across the world, the website Code.org has registered more than 117,000 Hour of Code events; that number is expected to grow as the week progresses. (Computer Science Education Week runs December 5–11 and is in honor of 
The Washington Monument will remain shut until at least 2019, according to the National Park Service. The well-known obelisk in the nation's capital has been shut since August because of ongoing problems with the internal elevator. A crack near the top of the 555-foot-tall monument appeared after a 2011 earthquake that measured 5.8 on the Richter scale, and park service officials closed the building at that time, reopening it after nearly three repairs. The ongoing shutdown will allow officials to make repairs to the electrical system, the computer system, and to other mechanical systems. The hallmark of the newly opened monument will be an entirely new elevator, so that visitors can once again rise nearly to the top and access an observation deck for panoramic views of the surrounding area.
A poem written by famed World War II diarist Anne Frank has sold at auction for $148,000, far more than what was expected. The eight-line poem, partially copied from a book Dutch children's poems, had a term of attribution, that of Christiane van Maarsen, whose sister was Anne's closest friend, Jacqueline. Christiane died in 2006. She had torn it from her poezie album (a kind of diary and scrapbook) and given it to her sister in the 1970s.J acqueline put the poem up for auction with the Haarlem auction house Bubb Kuyper. The expected sale price was about $50,000. The buyer made the purchase online and wished to remain anonymous. 
November 23, 2016
The curtain has gone up again for Shakespeare’s early efforts.Researchers at the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) have unearthed a significant piece of the Curtain Theatre, one of London’s first purpose-built theaters and an early favourite of famed Elizabethan playwright William Shakespeare. Unlike other theatres of the day, which would have been adapted to include a stage, the rectangular Curtain was built with the stage and the audience in mind. An intriguing bonus in the dig was the discovery of a long passageway running underneath the length of the stage. The theory is that actors could get from one side of the stage to the other quickly and secretly – a common enough occurrence in today’s theater but not so commonly found or easily done in Elizabethan times.
Archaeologists have discovered a wall tableau of dozens of boats that date back more than 3,800 years. The images, which number more than 120, are on the wall of building near the tomb of Pharaoh Senwosret III, who ruled 1878–1839 B.C. A powerful leader who enjoyed great military success and a visionary builder who had constructed many famous buildings and other landmarks, Senwosret III was one of just a few kings of Ancient Egypt who enjoyed his own cult in his own lifetime. The images, which range from 4 inches to nearly 5 feet in width, show masts, sails, cabins, rudder, oars, and other trappings of ancient ships. Some images even show people doing the rowing. Other images showed flowers and animals, notably cattle and gazelles.
Representatives from 24 nations and the European Union have created the world’s largest marine protected area, off the coast of Antarctica. The area, in the Ross Sea, is 598,000 square miles in size and home to 16,000 species of penguins, seals, whales, and other wildlife that are found nowhere else on Earth. Under the agreement, 30 percent of the area will be off limits to commercial fishing. Another 28 percent will be research zones.
Emoji are going to MoMa. The pictographs now so familiar to users of portable phones and tablets will be on display at New York's Museum of Modern Art from December, in a permanent exhibit on graphics and animation. First appearing in 1999, emoji were the brainchild of Shigetaka Kurita, on behalf of the Japanese mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo. The first emoji, a set of 176, were simple in nature because cell phones in those days could handle only simple line drawings. The initial set included basic drawings of weather symbols, modes of transportation, zodiac signs, sports, symbols of food and drink, suits of playing cards, methods of communication, and even animals (not to mention the most popular emoji of all time, the smiling face). Today's emoji are more complex in construction and more varied in scope. One estimate lists the total as more than 1,800.
October 28, 2016
There is indeed no place like home, and Dorothy’s ruby red slippers can stay at the Smithsonian and even get an upgrade, thanks to help from the public. The museum had appealed for help from the public, in the form of a Kickstarter campaign. The campaign launched October 17, with a goal of $300,000, which the museum said was needed to repair the shoes and also construct a state-of-the-art preservation display case. In less than a week, the campaign reached its goal, thanks to donations from more than 5,300 people in 41 countries.
An underwater archeology enterprise has discovered dozens of previously unknown shipwrecks from ancient times, some in excellent condition. The Black Sea Maritime Archeology Project has been using photogrammetry to construct 3D models to approximate what the ships’ shells would have looked like in their entirety. Some of the more than 40 ships discovered date to the Ottoman period; other ships date to the Byzantine Empire.
Potato chips for $56? How many do you get? How about only 5?That’s the special set of tasty snacks on offer from St. Erik’s brewery in Sweden. The price is so high because the chips are filled with specialty ingredients, including truffle seaweed, matsutake mushrooms, a special kind of wort, and (the main ingredient) potatoes grown only in a certain place on the planet.
A ship that carried famed South Pole explorer Roald Amundsen has emerged from the depths after decades underwater. Amundsen was the first to reach the South Pole, in 1911, and in 1906, the first to lead an expedition through the Northwest Passage. It was in 1918 that Amundsen and crew set out aboard the Maud to traverse the Northeast Passage. They left Oslo, Norway, and travelled along the Russian coast to Nome, Alaska. In all, the crew spent seven years aboard the Maud. The ship took the crew through the frozen Arctic lands, faciliating observations of weather and the stars. In 1930, the Maud sprung a leak and sunk. A Norwegian salvage team has finally brought the ship back to the surface.
Remembrances of a banker who lost his life and his livelihood in the volanic ash of Mount Vesuvius are accessible, thanks to digital reconstruction of the house in which the banker lived. Archaeologists on the Swedish Pompeii Project have been working for a decade and a half on a project to document in painstaking detail what a city block in the ruined city of Pompeii would have been like. The block, known as Insula V1, contained a bakery, a laundry, a tavern, a few gardens, and three very large estates (and one of those estates belonged to a banker). The archaeologists found, among other things, that the taps to a fountain in one of the gardens were on at the time of the volcanic eruption and that the volcanic ash had frozen the running water solid. As well, one of the shops still had intact three windows, made of gypsum.
A scientist in the Netherlands has stitched together nearly 300 bones to make a complete skeleton of a woolly mammoth and is auctioning it off. The bones date back to between 30,000 years ago and 50,000 years ago, said Bart Schenning, who spent more than a decade painstakingly attaching the bones on a frame that approaches 10 feet in height and 18 feet in length. Schenning assembled the skeleton in a very large shed outside his house, then mounted the skeleton on a giant frame. The auction appears on the online site Catawiki. A representative for the site said that both museums and private collectors had expressed interest. The sale price is expected to exceed 200,000 pounds, the website representative said.
Archaeologists in Japan have found in the ruins of a Japanese castle some coins minted in Ancient Rome. The 10 coins are bronze and copper, and the oldest dates to the 4th or 5th Century A.D. The coins were found on one of the Ryukyu Islands, near Okinawa, in the ruins of Katsuren, a medieval castle that has been designated a UNESCO world heritage site and as a Designated Historial Monument by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs. The island is home to several U.S. military bases, so the archaeologists thought at first that they had found some pedestrian coins dropped by U.S. soldiers. But further investigation revealed Roman letters and illustrations of a Roman soldier holding a spear. Further X-ray scanning revealed that some of the coins showed the profile of Constantine the Great, who was emperor of Rome in the 4th Century.
President Barack Obama, America’s first African-American President, cut the ribbon at the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, an act that many observers found poignant in its symbolism. Obama also gave a speech dedicating the museum. The President’s address was part of a three-day celebration on the National Mall that also included musical performances and oral history activities.
Archaeologists have found indigo-dyed fabric in Peru that dates to 6,200 years ago. It is the oldest known use of the blue coloring on fabric yet found. The indigo was applied to woven cotton, of which fragments remain today. The archaeologists found the fragments in bundles along a ramp that led to an ancient temple at Huaca Prieta, a prehistoric site north of what is now the Peruvian city of Trujillo. Residents built the temple on top of a living space, and subsequent generations updated the construction, so that the archaeologists found many layers of remains.
An online exhibit uses 3D models to help tell the story of a doomed crewmember aboard the fabled 16th-Century Mary Rose. The English warship, pressed into action against a French invasion in 1545, sank so quickly in the Solent that most of the hundreds of soldiers and crew onboard drowned. Of particular interest to the authors of the latest study was the onboard life of a carpenter; among the remains found were his skull, a shoe, a spoon, and several woodworking tools. The shoe, in particular, was in good shape still. In fact, scientists said that the leather was intact and that it wouldn’t take much for someone today to be able to wear the shoe reliably.
For the first time ever, a woman leads the Democratic Party of Japan, now the country’s main opposition political party. Renho, a former model and television anchor, will now try to lead her party back into power. Renho, who goes by just the one name, became well-known in the 1980s as a model and was one of the main TV newscasters reporting from Kobe in 1995, after the massive earthquake there. She won election to Parliament in 2004 and was most recently the party’s deputy leader. Renho is the first woman to head the DPJ and the first person with mixed ethnic heritage to lead a Japanese political party.
