Articles with 600-800 Words

Columbus Day has been a fixture on American calendars since 1937, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared October 12 a federal holiday to honor the Italian explorer who “discovered” the Americas in 1492. However, the holiday, whose date has since been changed to the second Monday of October, has always been somewhat controversial. Many people believe that Christopher Columbus should not be given credit for “discovering” the continent, since Native Americans had already been residing there for generations....

In most countries being able to drive is a fundamental right, afforded to anyone that is of legal age. However, this is not the case in Saudi Arabia. In this ultraconservative Islamic nation, women are not allowed to do many things that females worldwide take for granted, including getting behind the wheel. Though there is no official law in place, local authorities consistently turn down license requests from women, effectively resulting in a defacto ban. Those who defy the unwritten rule often end up losing their jobs and even risk getting arrested and jailed....

The next time your brain refuses to recall a simple fact or name, be thankful. That’s because according to University of Toronto professors Blake Richards and Paul Frankland, could be a sign that your brain is getting rid of unnecessary information so that it can operate more efficiently, and help you make better decisions....

Pedestrian etiquette – things like not walking into oncoming traffic or keeping to the right of the sidewalk – comes naturally to humans. However, while robots have been programmed to accomplish many things, teaching them to navigate among crowds has proved a challenge because it is hard to accurately predict each person’s path. Now, a team of MIT engineers, led by Steven Chen, have overcome the hurdle with a knee-high autonomous machine that can seamlessly weave itself through pedestrians, paving the way for errand-running and pizza delivering robots....

Given that sharks have been around for millions of years and can live for as long as 400 years, it is evident that the formidable species has developed an arsenal of survival mechanisms. However, a lemon shark’s two-year quest to rid itself of a piece of ingested stainless steel through its skin, and self-heal Wolverine style, has impressed even the most jaded scientists....

Every year on September 19, residents of Mexico City conduct an emergency evacuation drill to mark the anniversary of an 8.0 magnitude earthquake that killed about 10,000 residents in 1985. Yesterday was no exception. At 11:00 am, thousands of people left their homes, offices, and shops and made their way to the predesignated safe zones. Little did they know that within just two hours, the evacuation warning bells would ring again. Only this time, they were instantly followed by the violent shaking of a 7.1 magnitude earthquake....

A week ago, on Tuesday, September 12, Apple unveiled its latest offerings to eagerly awaiting fans. The 2017 product showcase held at Apple Park, the company’s new “spaceship” headquarters in Cupertino, CA, included an upgraded Apple Watch, 4K Apple TV, as well as the next generation iPhones – 8 and 8 plus. Just as the presentation appeared to be drawing to a close, company CEO Tim Cook, took to the podium mouthing the late Steve Job’s familiar, “one more thing . . .” phrase, before introducing the much-anticipated iPhone X (“ten”)....

Just days after Hurricane Harvey struck Texas and parts of Louisiana, leaving behind unprecedented destruction, an even stronger tropical cyclone was reported heading towards Florida. Irma, the most powerful Atlantic Ocean hurricane in recorded history, first brought chaos to the Caribbean, devastating islands like Barbuda and St. Martin on September 6, where it struck with Category 5 winds that at times reached up to 185 mph....

Over a 100 million years ago, an 18-foot (5.48 meter) long, 2,500-pound (1,133 kg) pineapple-shaped dinosaur met an untimely death when it was swept away by a river in what is now Alberta, Canada. Fortunately for us, its body ended up situated back-first on the muddy floor of an old seaway. This helped preserve the ancient behemoth’s front half in such extraordinary 3-D detail that the armored dinosaur almost looks alive....