Monthly Archives: December 2009

The world’s rainforests cover less than ten percent of the earth’s surface, but contain over forty percent of all plant and animal species. The biggest rainforest is in South America. It’s called the Amazon.

The Amazon is by far the largest remaining rainforest are left on our planet. It’s about six to seven million square kilometers. It’s about two-thirds the size of the United States including Alaska. It’s enormous. Sixty percent of it is in Brazil, but the rainforest also extends into Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, French Guiana and Surinam. And amazingly each year the Amazon provides twenty percent of the world’s fresh water. Here you can find at least three thousand species of fresh water fish. And more monkeys than you can find anywhere else on Earth. In Brazil alone, nine new species of monkeys have been identified over the last year.

But many of those species, known and unknown, are destroyed every day. Constant logging, mining and cattle ranching are stripping the jungles clean.

“We’ve already lost well over fifty percent of the rainforest that existed at the turn of the last century. And if current trends continue we stand to lose a very large percentage of the life forms that share the planet with us.” Scientists like    Dr.Mitter meier and Conservation International are trying to make a difference.

Take care—those Chinese New Year finger foods could be bad for your health, a consumer watchdog in Hong Kong has warned before the Lunar New Year.

More than one third of dried melon seeds—a traditional snack of the festive period—tested in a survey have been found to contain harmful ingredients which could cause stomach upsets.

Eating just one or two seeds with the shell could push you over the recommended daily intake of mineral oils, and lead to sickness and diarrhea, said Hong Kong’s Consumer Council.

They are often bought ready—made, colored red or black, and then handed to guests who visit with new year greetings. The consumer council tested 20 samples of the seeds and found that eight contained harmful mineral oils. It said the oils are often used to make the products look shiny and more appealing. It advises shoppers to give the glossy seeds a miss and not to consume the shell which contains the majority of the oil.

Without the shell, an adult could safely eat around 700 seeds without exceeding health safety limits, compared to just one or two with the shell, it said.

Some people are inconsiderate drivers. In the city, they will at times stop right in the middle of the street while looking for a certain home or landmark. If they had any consideration for the cars behind them, they would pull over to the curb first. Other drivers will suddenly slow down unexpectedly at a city intersection to make a right or left turn. The least they could do is use their turn signals to let those behind them know in advance of their intention. On the highway, a common example of inconsiderateness is night drivers who fail to turn off their high beams, creating glare for cars approaching in the other direction. Other rude highway drivers move to the second or passing lane and then stay there, making it impossible for cars behind to go around them. Yet other drivers who act as if they have special privileges are those who do not wait their turn in bottleneck situations where the cars in two lanes must merge alternately into one lane. Perhaps the most inconsiderate drivers are those who throw trash out their windows, creating litter that takes away some of the pleasure of driving and that must be paid for with everyone’s tax dollars.

To learn with success is not a very difficult task if some fundamental principles are laid down. While discussing this subject, I would like to mention four indispensable principles: diligence, devotion, constancy, and punctuality.

All things can be conquered by diligence. It makes the foolish wise, the poor rich, and the humble noble. It produces a wonderful effect. In learning, the work of a diligent fool doubles that of a lazy wit.

Devotion means to set our heart on one thing at a time and give up all other thought. Never think of learning another subject while studying one subject. Those who often change their studies will never succeed in the long run. Therefore, in order to be successful we need devotion.

Constancy makes success a certainty, In contrast, inconstancy often results in failure. If we study day after day, there is nothing that can not be achieved. We should remember a worthy proverb “Constant dropping of water wears away a stone.”

Besides, there is another rule that contribute to one’s accomplishments, that is, punctuality. The habit of keeping regular hours is of extreme importance to successful learning. Work while you work; play while you  play. Every man will certainly become strong and wise if he does so.