英语小小孩

Today I will bring up a few things about the Yule Ball in Harry Potter that you may not have noticed. It’s been a while since I talked about the Harry Potter series. The Yule Ball happened during The Goblet of Fire, between the First Task and Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament. In the second task, the Champions needed to rescue the person they would miss most from the lake in the Hogwarts Gro...

Consumers who grew up with Nestlé’s Smarties confectionery often have fond memories of popping plastic caps off the tubes of sugar-coated chocolate beans. But Smarties lovers from now on will have a different experience. This year, the world’s largest foodmaker ditched the caps as part of a switch to entirely recyclable paper-based packaging across the Smarties brand — a move intended to help cut...

Some cities, states, and countries say that they just can’t go 100% renewable — it’s “impossible.” Others say that they may be able to do it, someday, perhaps. Others tells us that they will do it — in 2050. Or maybe 2040. Perhaps even 2030. And then there are some that have already done it. (Yes, including several countries.) The latest jurisdiction to log a 100% renewable energy milestone is the...

Researchers at the University of Toronto, in collaboration with Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Public Health Ontario and Mount Sinai Hospital, have developed a COVID-19 antibody test that makes use of a smartphone camera. The test could significantly improve the turnaround time and efficiency of infectious disease diagnosis, both for COVID-19 and beyond. The work is published in the latest iss...

They never told us what she did. Every middle school in the teaches its students to remember this simple phrase: "Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally." But why are we apologizing for her behavior? Did she wear white after Labor Day or something? The world may never know. "Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally" is just a mnemonic. It's a tool educators use to help us memorize information through a catchy r...

In London, Canada, 4 Muslims were killed. Police say that it was likely due to anti-Muslim hate. Nathaniel Veltman, a 20 year old man, was charged with 4 counts of first-degree murder and a count of attempted murder. Police say that a 74-year-old woman died at the scene. A 44 year old woman, 46 year old man, and a 15 year old girl were rushed to the hospital, but later died due to injuries. A 9 ye...

Recently, the dead bodies of 215 indigenous children were found in Kamloops, a city in Canada. It was found near a residential school. Residential schools are schools managed by the Catholic Church and the Canadian government for indigenous children. In residential schools, indigenous children are often mistreated and sometimes abused. These residential schools are closed today, but the remains of...

Colonial Pipeline Co. paid nearly $5 million to Eastern European hackers on Friday, contradicting reports earlier this week that the company had no intention of paying an extortion fee to help restore the country’s largest fuel pipeline, according to two people familiar with the transaction. The company paid the hefty ransom in difficult-to-trace cryptocurrency within hours after the attack, under...

A study from the University of Guelph suggests that a cat owner and their training methods can play a big role in preventing aggressive behaviour. Lead author Kristina O’Hanley, a PhD candidate at the veterinary college, found that the cats in the study showed less aggression if they received positive reinforcement to manage unwanted tendencies. Cats would become aggressive to their owners, other...

The tragic tale of the Titanic still captures attention more than 100 years after the passenger liner sank in the North Atlantic 600 km southeast of Cape Race, N.L. Now, Canadian researchers are investigating the authenticity of a message in a bottle allegedly thrown from the liner before it went down. Four years ago, a family walking along the shores of the Hopewell Rocks near Hopewell Cape, N.B....

Canada’s biggest toilet paper manufacturer aims to make some of its tissue from bamboo as an environmentally sustainable option for consumers. Kruger Products LP, the maker of brands such as Cashmere and Purex toilet papers, and SpongeTowels, is researching ways to turn bamboo into quality tissue with the goal of adding the renewable resource to its EnviroCare line, likely by 2023, Chief Executive...

A new prototype webcam looks like a realistic human eye, complete with its own eyebrow – and it blinks, too. If that's not enough, it's also capable of looking around and acting out on its own accord. It can express emotions such as anger and sadness, and it can check out what else is going on in the room if it doesn't feel like looking at you anymore. It's obviously an uncanny sight to see sittin...

JK Rowling has a new book coming this fall, a holiday children's story with all new characters. Scholastic announced that The Christmas Pig, the story of a boy named Jack and a beloved toy (Dur Pig) which goes missing, will be released worldwide Oct 12. “But Christmas Eve is a night for miracles and lost causes, a night when all things can come to life ... even toys,” according to Scholastic. “And...

An 80 year old women, who is diagnosed with issues with her immune system, is treated with a continuous infusion of antibiotics to treat her infection. Almost every piece of equipment involved is used once, then thrown away. She calculates that there would be 730 IV bags, 156 disposable ice packs, 52 plastic and 104 forceps that would be thrown into the trash after a year. Multiple syringes are us...

In Canada, the federal government is designating March 11, which is the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 to be a global pandemic, to be a national day to commemorate those who have died due to the virus. I think it’s really good for the people who have been killed by the virus to be remembered, and it’s also really good for the government to do this.

Two first editions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone are for sale at a bookshop, for more than 100,000 pounds. The one paperback edition and hardback version of the book are believed to be the only two on sale in the whole of the country, with the only other paperback available in the USA. In 1997, the first edition paperback was once available for only 5 pounds.

Katie Leung, the actor who played Cho Chang in the Harry Potter films, was silenced by publicists when she got racial hate during the filming of the movies. She recalls googling herself at one point, visiting a Harry Potter fandom site, and finding a bunch of racist comments about her. She then tried to speak to a publicist, because she didn’t have any experience with the media, and the publicist...

Have you ever wondered what the black stripes on the side of a school bus really mean? They might seem like decoration, but they actually serve a bigger purpose. A school buses’side is made of a thin layer of metal, so in case of a crash, it’s very dangerous. The black lines actually represent the bottom of the seat line, the floor of the passenger compartment, and the top of the seat. The lines s...

Following his Super Bowl half-time show, The Weeknd got a shoutout from the University of Toronto and it came with the cutest throwback picture of him. The image posted to Twitter highlights the global superstar's humble beginnings from a talent show in his hometown of Scarborough back in 2008, to his performance at the Super Bowl in 2021. The University of Toronto Scarborough took to social media...

SpaceX has launched another 60 Starlink internet satellites on February 15th, bringing the total number of satellites to 1,145. Although SpaceX successfully launched the satellites, it missed the landing of its Falcon 9 first stage booster. SpaceX engineer Jessica Anderson, who was offering commentary during the live launch, stated that it was unfortunate that SpaceX was unable to recover the boos...

Using vision technology to identify weeds in agriculture is an area of active development, and a team of researchers recently shared their method of using a combination of machine vision plus depth information to identify and map weeds with the help of OpenCV, the open-source computer vision library. Agriculture is how people get fed, and improving weed management is one of its most important chal...

Facebook and Twitter suspending former President Donald Trump’s accounts in the wake of a mob storming the Capitol raises yet again the issue of the discretion that federal law affords internet platforms to regulate speech and Big Tech’s monopoly power. Facebook may have a monopoly by providing a substantially differentiated digital bulletin board, but it is a free service, making questionable eco...

Last month, the Flaming Lips performed their first socially distant live show in their hometown of Oklahoma City for an audience encapsulated in space bubbles. They have now announced two more gigs: They’ll take place March 12 and 13 at the Criterion in Oklahoma City. According to a press release, “local health and safety standards will be strictly observed for this full-production live Lips event...

An Indonesian cave painting that depicts a prehistoric hunting scene could be the world&`&s oldest figurative artwork dating back nearly 44,000 years, a discovery that points to an advanced artistic culture, according to new research. potted two years ago on the island of Sulawesi, the 4.5 metre (13 foot) wide painting features wild animals being chased by half-human hunters wielding what appear t...

A coalition of more than 50 countries has committed to protect almost a third of the planet by 2030 to halt the destruction of the natural world and slow extinctions of wildlife. The High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, which includes the UK and countries from six continents, made the pledge to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans before the One Planet summit in Par...