Maja-English

 On the first day of school, when i was going to school by bus I noticed a girl crying. She was dressed formally so I assumed that she was also on her way to school. Then after that I saw another person crying, I told my friends about it and they said that they also have seen students crying on their way to school.   I obviously can’t know for sure what was the reason for these people to cry but my guess is that school was the reason. School can be very stressful for some people, so maybe the form of online school isn’t so bad after all. Online school gives students the opportunity to learn how they want to learn. The schedule is more flexible so they can devote more time to their interests. 

 Indonesian men, women and even children risk their health wearing metalic paint to earn money beacuse of the financial problems caused by the coronavirus. They stop traffic and make little performances to earn money, but the paint that they cover themselves in causes iritation on e.g. their eyes, skin etc. The pandemic really afected them in a finantial way, some of them can't earn enough money to provide food for their families which is why they are franticly trying different ways to earn some money.  I think that it is just an example of how the coronavirus and the whole pandemic affects people. It has a big economic impact in the whole world but mostly in the more poor parts of the world. In march 2020 about 1.63 milion indonesians fell into poverty beacuse of it. The people doing this said that they are aware of the risks of covering themselves in the paint but they say that they think that there is no other choice which i think is really sad. source: https://www.theguard...

 On the island of New Caledonia in the south pacific there has been made an interesting discovery. The discovery is a tree called  Pycnandra acuminata which bleeds a bright blue-green substance when cut. The substance contains up to 25% nickel which is very poisonous to most plants in actually really small amounts. If these kind of metal-containing plants are dried and burned to ash they give a high-grade metal ore, which uses much less energy than needed in standard mining and produces far less pollution.  It's not very likely for it to fully replace conventional mining but it could help clean up soils poluted with toxic metals, and I think taht this little dicovery is really interesting because we don't really know why some plants feed on such metals and don't kill themselves with it. It is thought that they probably use it as a way to protect themselves against insects and fungal infections. In my opinion it would be great if we could use this ability for a good c...

The covid vaccine was used on apes at San Diego zoo. In the start of 2021 four orangutans and five bonobos became the first great apes at a US zoo to recieve the vaccine for covid. An outbreak in that zoo have caused some panic amog the staff after the virus had spread to the animals, it is suspected that they got infected from a asymptomatic zookeeper. Eight gorillas tested positive with minor symptoms like for example a runny nose or coughs. For now the great apes had recovered but it is still concerning as some experts said that it could even wipe out populations of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans because of their genetic proximity to humans.  It is very worrying that the virus is now spreading among animals. Because of that the zookepers and the tourists have been following strict social-distancing rules around the animals. A lot of sientists from the US and from Russia are now working on a vaccine for this problem, but who knows how long it will take them and its sad...

Hummingbirds are easily recognisable by the sound that they make but the cause of the sound has been a mystery for a really long time. That's why scientists started reaserching the way they produce the sound. They have found out that the answer lies in the aerodynamic forces, and hence pressure changes produced as the wings move. They executed many experiments and tests to get this information for example they measured the lift and drag forces produced by the flapping of the wings. I think that it's great that we start looking more into the animal world because it's really interesting and we can find out interesting facts like this. I would have never thought that the sound is actually produced with their wings. I really enjoy reading reaserches on various animals because I think that their world is so fascinating and we know very little for example about the underwater world or even the animals that live with us on the land. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/16/...

 In Seville, Spain in the spring season the orange trees start blossoming and result in producing about 15,000 tonnes of the fruit. Obviously a lot of it goes to waste so the city came up with a solution to this problem, they found a way to make them into a source of renewable energy. They would use the energy to run one of the city's water purification plants. How it would work is as the orages ferment they produce methane which will be used to generate electicity.  In my opinon it's great that they came up with this idea. The demand for renewable sources of energy is always present beacuse it's a great way of caring for the enviroment. Also it's like killing two birds with one stone because it doesn't only generate renewable energy but also helps with reducing the amount of oranges that go to waste. I think that if we could coming up with more solutions like this would really help improve our environmental sustainability. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/enviro...

 Reserve in Louisana is the town that has a risk of cancer 50 times the national average. It's because of a chemical plant built on the site of an old plantation that emits a likely human carcinogen. The company is worried about the cost of offsetting emissions of the likely cancer causing polution.  The towns residents said that they had never been informed of any potential emissions regulation and described the news as "appaling". I think that it is irresponsible that they weren't made aware of the danger, because it is directly regarding their health and well-being. I think that prioritising profits over people is very unethical and is a wrong move from the goverment thast is supposed to take care of the society.

 This semester i would like to improve my speaking and writing abilities. I want to be able to speak in longer forms like presentations etc. without stressing and stumbling. I can improve that by recording myself while talking and also I should put more thought into learning new words because I think that can help too. I would like to by able to write more clearly and be more grammatically corect and I think that our blog post task for this semester will help me do that.