Castaway

Can you imagine spending more than a month drifting in a small boat in the South Pacific Ocean? Two sailors from Kiribati were eventually found on an isolated atoll on the southern fringes of the Marshall Islands, 500km (300 miles) from home. Little is known about how they survived but theirs is a story of true resilience.

 

For Bob Cooper, a veteran survival expert from Western Australia, escaping such dire circumstances depends on staying positive and calm, not easy when salvation seems so far away.

"That fight is going on with your logical side saying, 'We need water, warmth, shelter, signals and food.”

Experts agree that while sound planning and a clear mind are key ingredients, luck plays a decisive part too. One over-inquisitive nudge by a passing shark or a freak wave could sink all hope, while a slice of good fortune could make all the difference.

Gabriel, José, Laís, Lina, Lucas, Rodrigo and Otávio

Rock N Roll: ACDC

AC/DC are an Australian hard rock band, formed in 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. The Band is normaly classified as hard rock and considered one of the pioneers of heavy metal, along with bands like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. However, the members always classified the music like rock and roll.

The AC/DC sold more than 150 million albums worldwide, including 71 million only in United States. Back in Black has sold an estimated 49 million units worldwide, making it the highest-selling album by any band and the second-highest-selling album in history, behind Thriller by Michael Jackson. AC/DC ranked fourth on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock" and were named the seventh "Greatest Heavy Metal Band of All Time" by MTV. In 2004, AC/DC were ranked number 72 in the Rolling Stone list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 2010, AC/DC were ranked number 23 in the VH1 list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".

The band received a lot of indications for Grammy Award,” The best performance of Hard Rock” for four times, “Blow Up Your Video” in 1989, “The Razors Edge” in 1991, “Moneytalks” in 1992 and “Highway to Hell” in 1994, and “The best performance of rock for one duet or group” in 2009 with “Rock N Roll Train” and any others.

The AC/DC start in rock and roll hall of fame on March 2003. For the ceremony the band play the music, Highway to Hell and You shook me all night long witch the Aerosmith’s singer, Steven Tyler. it´s a long way to the top if wanna rock n roll!!!

Facebook

Facebook is a social network released in February 4, 1994. Was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin (brazilian) and Chris Huges, former students from Havard University. Originally, membership of Facebook was restricted to students of Harvard University. Ir was expanded to the Massachussets Institute of Technology, Boston University, Boston College and all Ivy Leagues Schools whitin two months.

Facebook has more than 500 active users. Facebook's position in the ranking of visitor traffic, climbed up from 60th place to 7th place.

10 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT FACEBOOK

1- The original logo of the service was the face of AL PACINO.

2- On average, 200.000 people registered on Facebook all day and stay 55 minutes on the site.

3- An avarage user has 130 friends.

4- Among users, the fatest growing demographic category: women over 55% (900% between 2009 and 2010). the more drops: university students ( down 55% in the same period).

5- Facebook has more than 500 million active users.

6- People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

7- There are over 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

8- More than 25 million items ( links, news, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month.

9- People who access Facebook via mobile are two times more active than non-mobile users.

10- On avarage, a Facebook user is connected on avarage 80 pages, groups and events.

Restavecs

A restavec (or restavek; from the French reste avec, "one who stays with") is a child in Haiti who is sent by their parents to work for a host household as a domestic servant because the parents lack the resources required to support the child. Restavek may refer to a child staying with a host family, but usually refers specifically to those who are abused.
But, to understand why Haiti is so poor, we need to know some history facts about this country. In 1492, Cristopher Columbus discovered the island. At the end of the eleventh century almost all of native population had disapeared, enslaved or dead by settlers. In 1697 the western part of the island, where Haiti is located today, was given to France by the Spain. After a slave revolt 1794 the country became the first in the world to abolish slavery, and, in 1804, Haiti became independent. As a way of retaliation, USA and Europe maintain an economic blockade on Haiti for 60 years, and after this, to end the economic blockade, the country accepted to pay an indemnity very big to France. Because all these facts that this country is considered the poorest in America.
So coming back to the Restavecs, in Haiti, parents unable to care for children may send them to live with more affluent families. This is perceived as acceptable because in Haitian culture, it is ubiquitous for housing to be shared among members of an extended family, including distant relatives. (In contrast, the concept of a single nuclear family occupying each household is seen as desirable in other cultures.) Therefore, in Haiti it is acceptable for parents to send children to distant relatives to live, often these relatives are living in more urban areas. The children receive food and housing (and sometimes an education) in exchange for housework. However many restavecs live in poverty, they might not receive proper education and, sometimes, the child could be abused, beaten or raped. The United Nations considers restavec a "modern form of slavery".
Restavecs are mostly young black girls that are around the age of 9 and younger. However, there are still young males that are involved in this system as well. These young girls are born into poverty and they have suffered some type of mental, physical, and sexual abuse. They have no social or political voice, so they can’t determine their futures. A lot of parents send their children to be restavecs thinking that they are going to live a better life, but a lot of times this is not the case. Children who are raised in a poor family or lose their parents become domestic workers in Haiti.
I decide to write about this after I watched a documentary from ESPN "Haiti: o país dos restavec vous", produced by Lúcio de Castro. In this documentary we can see how is the real situation of that country, and what they realy need. They don’t need troops to control a civil war, they need some humanitary help in education, with food, with the population health. A lot of money has been spent with a false war, and this is not what the population need. I recommend everybody to watch the documentary that shows the restavecs and the worldwide symbol of human race shame.

Haiti: o país dos restavecs vous
Parte 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIeu4lUrV0E
Parte 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSp7EwU-zjg&feature=related
Parte 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJlVZu71W04&feature=related
Parte 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMRtEX7qQEg&feature=related
Parte 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHJ71hM7z9Y&feature=related

New research of Miguel Nicolelis makes monkeys move and feel virtual arm only with the mind.

The scientist Miguel Nicolelis in his laboratory at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina: a new research made monkeys move a virtual arm using only brain signals.

One more step in the ambitious project “Walk Again”, coordinated by the Brazilian scientist Miguel Nicolelis , who want to create a robot able vest to make a quadriplegic walk again. In a study published online by the magazine Nature, Nicolelis and his team report that the experience made a monkey control a virtual arm using only thought. But the study went further: the monkey got back tactile signals, as if the virtual arm could feel the texture of real objects, a first in the history of science.

The research opens way for in the near future, as they want Nicolelis and his team at Duke University, USA, and Institute of Neuroscience of Natal, in Brazil, a tetraplegic to walk again using a robotic device. Fanatic Palmeiras, the Brazilian scientist's goal is to make a person wearing the vest kick off the opening match of World Cup 2014.

The revolution is in the fact that this time, Nicolelis's team used a brain-machine interface, brain (ICMC), equal to the ICM, but able to send information back to the brain by means of visual, tactile or electrical . It is as if the brain talk to the machine and the machine talk back to the brain.

Ooops!

The adventurous spirit always took care of all human beings, since man placed his feet on the moon, its fixation by adrenaline has been the main fuel for the discovery of new sources of this hormone.

Created by a group of cyclists, the newness in the riding world is now pratice in places where it naturally would not be recommended. But that emotion was recently turned into tragedy.
During the cross country competition at the Albert Falls reserve in South Africa, the cyclist Evan van der Spuy was riding around the track when it was hit by an antelope. The rider who came back Travis Walker and had a camera mounted on the handlebars of your bike caught the impressive scene.
The man who suffered the accident is medicated and well, but that be a lesson to others and not take yourself so seriously practice in wild places as well!
Actions speak louder than words, if it's true...

"Paul is dead"

  The rumors began in 1966, shortly after the release of Revolver, when the Beatles stopped touring due to the difficulty of playing live more complex and unusual arrangements. All because of a motorcycle accident supposedly suffered by Paul McCartney.

The Legend

  According to the legend, Paul has died in a car accident at 5 a.m on a Wednesday, November 9th, 1966. He has been hit by a vehicle while he was driving. The news spread across the world, it became fans' obsession, turned into books, TV specials, websites and films.

  In the music "A Day In The Life" we can see it neatly: "he blew his mind out in a car…he didn’t notice that the lights had changed". Also in "I Am The Walrus": John sings: "I am the walrus", but then, someone says: "No you're not! Say Little Nicola!”, and then to complete, on the White Album, John sings:  "and here's another clue for you all…the walrus was Paul…" (song: Glass Onion)

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – 1967 (cover)

The entire set of elements of this layer would be a kind of funeral (Paul's). Looking at all those people, note the flower arrangements typical of a funeral.

Abbey Road – 1969 (cover)

A car seems to come to Paul. Or, as the British drive on the left hand, it seems that the car has reached Paul and moved on. Paul is the only barefooted Beatle. There is an English custom of being buried in bare feet.

  

  But now you might be wondering: "who is the man who made a concert in Brazil?". William Campbell, musician, almost as talented as Paul and had won a Paul McCartney look-alike contest. The truth is that the boy has never been seen in his town after that.


Are you a big fan? Wanna know more about it? Here you can find: Is Paul really dead?

Postcrossing

Postcrossing is an online project  that allows its members to send and receive real postcards from all over the world. The project's tag line is "send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!”^.  Its members, also known as Postcrossers, send postcards to other members and receive postcards back from other random Postcrossers. Where the postcards come from is always a surprise.

Postcrossing is the union of the words "postcard" and "crossing" and its origin "is loosely-based on the Bookcrossing site".  However, the "crossing" or exchange of postcards works in a different way. A member sends a postcard to another Postcrosser and receives a postcard back from a random Postcrosser. Exchanges between the same two members only occur once; although direct swaps between members happen, they are not part of the official happenings on the site. The project is completely free and anyone with an address can create an account. However, the postcards themselves and postage fees to mail them are the responsibility of each user.

As of September 2011, Postcrossing had over 251,000 members in 198 different countries who had exchanged over 8.4 million postcards that have traveled over 45.8 billion kilometers.

The highest concentration of Postcrossing members reside in the United States, China, Russia, Taiwan, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland. Globally, most Postcrossers reside in North America, Europe, and East Asia

The main idea is that if a member sends a postcard he or she will receive at least one back from a random Postcrosser somewhere in the world.

The first step is to request to send a postcard. The website will display (and send the member an e-mail) the address of another Postcrosser and a Postcard ID. The Postcard ID uniquely identifies that postcard in the system. The member then mails a postcard to that Postcrosser and writes the Postcard ID on it. The Postcrosser receives the postcard and registers it using the Postcard ID that is on the postcard. At this point, the member is eligible to receive a postcard from another Postcrosser. Where that postcard comes from is a surprise!

Initially each member can have up to 5 postcards traveling at any single time. Every time one of the sent postcards is registered, that Postcrosser can request another address. The number of postcards allowed to travel at any single time goes up the more postcards a member sends.

The Postcrossing system allows for the same two members to exchange postcards only once. By default, members will exchange postcards with countries other than their own; however, the users can decide to exchange postcards with other users in his or her own country.

A small percentage of mailed postcards get lost during their travels; others may arrive with the Postcard ID unreadable and are difficult to register. There are also members who become inactive while postcards are on the way to them. The system behind the website accounts for all these factors and compensates active members by attempting to reduce the difference between the number of sent and received postcards of each member.

http://www.postcrossing.com/

Learn more about it on the official website!

The Music Business

Last October 5th, the world's lost one of the great geniuses which passed by it. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computers, has gone, but his talents will never be forgotten. One of them is the interaction of music and technology. 

A small plastic and metal box the size of a pack of cigarettes was the salvation of a company and also the music industry. Dubbed the iPod and launched in October 2001 without much fanfare, the device has a personal stake of Steve Jobs, who returned only four years the company he founded 25 years ago. If, before the iPod, Apple was just a computer company that had 3% of its market, it currently runs the musical world, with over 10 billion songs and 307 million devices sold on the planet in ten years.

Alone, the iPod was a great weapon, but not win the battle on behalf of Apple. We would need to add a digital music store, where you could buy songs for less than $ 1 and copy them to your iPod for playback.
The iPod + iTunes ecosystem was responsible for the affirmation of digital music.

It is no exaggeration to say that Jobs was the most influential person in the digital music market in the last ten years. During this time he succeeded in forcing the majors to keep the amount paid per download music: 0.99 cents a unit. For artists, it was a good opportunity.

Being on iTunes Store became the only way to reach new generations of listeners.

 

In November 2010, after several years of waiting, the Beatles catalog was sold on the iTunes Store with great fanfare. In a few hours the English band three albums were among the top sellers. Finally, Steve Jobs has achieved his dream. After all, legend has it, the name chosen by him and Steve Wozniak created the company in 1976 intended to honor the Fab Four from Liverpool - who released their albums for Apple Records.




José, Laís, Lina

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize is annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural of scientific advances. It was established by Alfred Nobel, Swedish industrialist and chemist, inventor of the dynamite, in his will. Prizes are awarded on December 10^th, anniversary of the death of its creator. People, who have done important pioneering techniques, create or made outstanding contributions to society can be indicated. The laureates’ names are announced in October.

The award consists of a gold medal with an effigy of Alfred Nobel, engraved with his name, a diploma with the mention of the award and a monetary sum which varies according to the proceeds of the Nobel Foundation, but it’s around one million and half euros. The original purpose was to allow the laureates to continue working or researching without financial pressures.

The following awards are given annually:

Nobel Prize in Physics, decided by the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden

Nobel Prize in Chemistry, decided by the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, decided by the Karolinska Institute

Nobel Prize in Literature, decided by the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden

Nobel Peace Prize, decided by a committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament

The Nobel Prize is awarded under various conditions: can be won individually or shared between up three people, or may not be awarded in a given year, which allows the granting of two awards in the same category the following year. In addition, in a particular field may not be granted for one year or more, which happens more often with the Nobel Peace Prize.

2011 Nobel Prize Announcements

Physics: the discovered of the accelerating expansion of the universe trough observations of distant supernovae, which one half to Saul Perlmutter and other half to Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess

Chemistry: is awarded to Dan Schetchtman for the discovery of quasicrystals

Physiology or Medicine: divided to Bruce A. Beutler and Jules A. Hoffmann, the award was for discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity, and the other half to Ralph M. Steinman, for discovery the dendritic cell and its role adaptive immunity

Literature: is awarded to Tomas Transtromer because through his condensed translucent images, he give us fresh access to reality

ENEM

ENEM is a test created in 1988 for the ministry of education. Until 2009 the test was used only to evaluate the quality of secondary education in our country, but in 2009 the government began to use this as a form to people enter in the universits. The idea is to replace the vestibular, the test used to select people to enter in the university, by the ENEM. Now in 2011 only a few federal educational institutions is not using this replacing the vestibular, because the state gives a lot of money to the universits that adept ENEM as all the vestibular. In some cases the test is used only as the first stage.

ENEM is a kind of test completely different from the vestibular, because the student needs more than one subject to solve the question. There are 180 questions and a composiotion, 90 questions in the first day and 90 questions with the composition in the second day, each question with five alternatives. To avoid cheats four different kind of test is used, each one with different colors, wich only the organization of the questions is changed. Most of the questions have texts before the enunciation, the reason for this is that the government wants the interpretation of the student to solve the question, they want to finished with all that decorated things in the test in order to valorize the logical reasoning.

Rodrigo and Otavio.

It is possible to predict thoughts

Neuroscience has just made another huge progress: Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, USA, got a computer that can read minds or almost that. Each volunteer received a list of words that should think. While the volunteer did it, a computer analyzed your brain activity (by means of a brain Machine Resonance system). The software learned to associate the terms to patterns of the brain activity – And after a while, could guess which words people were thinking

The system has a major limitation – It can only read the mind of a person, if that person is totally focused. The hardest part!

“Sometimes, during the experiment, the stomach of a volunteer snored, and this person thought ‘I’m hungry‘ ”, and it mixed the computer up. Says the scientist Tom Mitchell, responsible for the study.

Arms crossed on one’s chest helps you think better. Need to solve a difficult problem? Cross your arms! According to research recently published in Europe, the simple act of crossing the arms causes a subconscious in the brain – that increases up to 30% the capacity of concentrate.

Since the brain is our subject, find out if yours is in good health:

    *Which is the clock intruder?

   

    *The following groups of letters has a specific logic. But one of the second group belongs to the first. What is it?

First Group: S G J O C R B D P U

Second Group: A T V Q E H K F I Z


Answers:

    *What is the probability of taking one or six when playing a dice?

*Without looking at the watches, respond quickly: what color of the third one?

The fifth clock is the intruder, because is the only time that started with a vowel letter

The letters of the first group are round and the letters of the second are straight, but letter Q

The set one and six represent one-third of the possibilities

The color is green