Malaysia

Today I made it to Malaysia. My uncle drove me from the airort to my grandma's house. We went for lunch before we made it to my grandma's house. We ate dim sum. When I came back to the house, I needed to take a shower because my grandma was scared that I had swine flu and didn't want it to spread to my younger cousins. I played a little bit on the ps2. I caught up with my kumon. That's pretty much what I did today.

Apples

The apple is the fruit of the apple tree. It is one of the most widely used tree fruits. The tree is small. It reaches to about 3 to 12 meters tall. The leaves are simple ovals 5 to 12 cm long and 3 to 6 centimeters. Blossoms are produced in spring. It is with the budding of the leaves. The flowers are white with a pink color that fades. It is also five petaled and about 2.5 to 3.5 centimetres in diameter. The fruit matures in autumn. It is normally 5 to 9 centimetres diameter. The tree originated from Central Asia. Its wild ancestor is still found today. There are more than 7,500 known apples. This results in a range of characteristics. At least 55 million tons of apples were grown worldwide in 2005. This is a value of about $10 billion. China produced about 35% of this total. The United States is the second leading producer with more than 7.5% of the world production. Turkey, France, Italy, and Iran are also part of the leading apple exporters. It seems that apple is a very poplular fruit. I couldn't find which country was the number one producer of apples.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is an good nutrient for humans. It is also good for a large number of primate species, a small number of other mamalian species, a few species of birds, and some fish. Ascorbate is an ion of ascorbic acid is required for a range of important reactions in all animals and plants. It is made up by almost all organisms. Human beings are an exception. It is widely known that a deficiency in this vitamin causes scurvy in humans. It is also widely used as a food. In living organisms, ascorbate is an antioxidant. Since it protects the body against stress. Scurvy has been known since ancient times. People in many parts of the world thought it was caused by a lack of fresh plant foods. The British Navy started giving sailors lime juice to prevent scurvy in 1795. Ascorbic acid was finally destroyed by 1933. The uses and recommended daily intake of vitamin C are matters of going debate. A recent analysis of 68 antioxidant supplementation experiments involving a total of 232,606 individuals. This analysis concluded that consuming additional ascorbate from supplements may not be as beneficial as thought. Vitamin C might not be good for people.

Space Landing Delay

Thunderstorms are making space shuttle Atlantis in orbit an extra day Friday. This is giving the crew unwanted time as they aimed for a landing the next day. They passed up two opportunities to land Friday at Kennedy Space Center., Mission Control thanked the seven astronauts for their patience. We know you looked at it hard. That's what commander Scott Altman said. He also said a little later we're enjoying the view. The astronauts made successful repairs of the Hubble Space Telescope's instruments. They're plan was to spend part of their day off watching DVDs. When they tried to play the movies, they found out that their laptops didn't have the proper software. Engineers on the ground tried to troubleshoot the problem. The astronauts gave up after more than an hour of trying. We'll be home tomorrow said from optimistic astronaut John Grunsfeld that radioed to Earth. He also said we'll go to the movie theater and that will be our consolation. I feel bad that they have to spend another day in space with nothing to do. It was bad luck for them to have thunderstorms. This is all the information I found out about the delay.

NASA Moon Mission

NASA on Thursday said it was on target for a June mission to go on the Moon's surface for landing sites. The water that would allow humans to work and even live on Earth's nearest neighbor. The space agency hopes to launch a dual craft in June. This is part of which would survey the Moon's surface from orbit. Another unit goes into the lunar surface in search for water. We had the original target of providing information back for being able to safely return to the Moon for exploration. That's what Mike Wargo said. He is a NASA's chief lunar scientist.
The mission will focus on the lunar poles. THe people are hoping to confirm reports of hydrogen water ice. The water-ice is not found at the equatorial regions that where famously explored by humans in the last century.It is scheduled to lift-off and strapped to an Atlas V rocket. This is from Cape Canaveral, Florida on June 17. One of the we are looking for is the potential of water ice at the lunar polar regions in these really mysterious permanently shadowed regions. That's what Wargo said. This is all the information I could find.

Car Bomb

Today there was a car bomb that killed 41 people. This bomb also injured over 70 people. This car bomb exploded on Wednesday. No group claimed responsibility for the car bomb. The style and location of the attack points that it was carried out by Sunni extremists. Al-Qaida in Iraq is an example of a Sunni extremists. The blast appeared timed for maximum civilian casualties. The bomb went off about 7 p.m. when many Baghdad residents take advantage of cooler evening temperatures for shopping and dining in outdoor kebab restaurants. It was the first major car bombing in the capital since May 6, when 15 people were killed at a produce market in south Baghdad. The deadliest in the city was when twin car bombs blasts. This car bomb killed 51 people in another Shiite neighborhood Sadr City on April 29. Nearly 200 people were killed in major bombings in Baghdad alone last month. This was mostly against Shiite targets. That has raised concern about security in the capital. This was ahead of a June 30 deadline for the U.S. to remove all combat forces from Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. Police said the blast happened in Shula. Shula is a neighborhood which had been a stronghold of Shiite militias including the Mahdi Army during the height of sectarian fighting two years ago. Witnesses said the blast occurred about 300 yards from an Iraqi security forces checkpoint. Police and hospital officials said 41 people were killed and 76 wounded. This is all I know.

My Speech

Hello my name is Shawn Voon and I did my persuasive speech on littering. I am for littering to be illegal everywhere. There are many reasons why littering is bad. Littering is bad because money is being used to clean up the litter, litter can be harmful, and it isn’t being stopped.
My first reason is that money is being used to clean up litter. People that would argue this reason would say how can litter waste the government’s money. In fact, they don’t know that the government pays an annual cost of one hundred fifteen million dollars for roadside litter control nationwide. Litter is also a cause to a large economic loss towards a country. In the U.S.A, According to the National Fire Protection Association, cigarettes that created fires result in $400 million in direct property damage each year. This adds more money for the government to pay because of littering.
The second reason is that littering is harmful. A counterargument for this would be that littering couldn’t hurt anybody because it’s just trash. According to the National Fire Protection Association, cigarettes that created fires result in more than 1,000 civilian deaths and 3,000 critical injuries. Littering can also harm small animals and their ecosystems. The small animals could get stuck in small jars or bottles. Rats are drawn to litter and they carry a lot of disease that make people ill. The disease could kill people making littering harmful. Every year over five thousand birds, fish and, other animals die from litter. These facts conclude that litter may be just trash but it can injure or kill living things that didn’t deserve to be killed by a bad choice people made.
My final reason is that littering isn’t being stopped. Someone that would argue this reason would say that littering can be stopped. It isn’t being stopped because people are started to get lazy as technology advances. A couple more reasons why littering isn’t being stopped is because most people don’t care, they have no sense of pride, or lack of consequence in their actions. Statistics show at least 80% of people that smoke litter because there is no ash tray, they are to lazy, or there are no garbage cans around. Statistics also show that there are about a million of people littering every day. An expert opinion from the Green Eco Services say that littering can be stopped, and there is no reason to litter in the first place.

In conclusion, I am for littering to be illegal everywhere because it’s spending a lot of money to fix, harmful to plants and animals, and it’s is not stopping. People can stop littering and it’s the little choices we make that make a big impact on the world. Once again, I’m Shawn Voon and I hope you enjoyed my speech.

Finished Repair on Hubble

Today I learned that the Hubble was finished with its repair. Spacewalking astronauts completed repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope on Monday. This was leaving it more powerful than ever and able to see deeper into the cosmos. This is almost to the end of creation. The last humans to lay hands on Hubble outfitted the observatory. They were with another set of new batteries. They also had a new sensor for pointing and protective covers. That equipment along with other improvements made over the last five days should allow the telescope to make good views of the universe for another five to 10 years. This is a very important moment in human history. That's what Hubble senior project scientist David Leckrone said in Houston. He also said we will rewrite the textbooks at least one more time. It was the fifth and final spacewalk for the shuttle Atlantis crew. It was also the final visit by astronauts ever to Hubble. The spacewalk was going to finish. I am glad that nobody got hurt on this spacewalk because there was a lot of debris that could have made it very difficult and dangerous to repair the Hubble.

Littering

Today I learned that littering has a lot of damaging effects. One of the effects are that it costs a lot of money. It costs a lot of money because the government has to pay someone to clean up the litter. The government has to pay around 115 million dollars every year to clean up the litter. There is about 59% of paper that is littered every day. There is 6% for cans. Thirteen for random things. I don't remember the rest. n That is a lot of money that can be used for other things like charity. There are also fires started from littering and the damage has to be paid so that adds more money caused by littering. Another effect is that it is very harmful. Littering can kill animals because small animals can get stuck in jars and starve to death. Birds can get caught in plastic. We can stop littering now. It's a choice to litter. There's is nothing that says that you have to litter in this world. Humans can get ill from rats that are attracted to the litter. There are probably 1 million people littering every day and thousands littering every 1o minutes. In conclusion, there are a lot of bad things about littering and people can stop littering. Littering is illegal in most places but people still do it. Littering should be more enforced.

5/16 Tennis Lessons

Today I had tennis lessons from Coach Doug. My mom drove me to Broadstone Raquet Club a little bit early. I went to the tennis court where my lesson was and I warmed up. Then Coach Doug came and I had to run my 3 laps and jump rope as usual. He said that I had very good movement. He noticed a problem in my swing which usually happens when I have to run to the tennis ball. He helped me fix the problem but it still happens occasionally. Then I did a couple of serves at the end of the lesson.

Tijuana Killings

The death of four young Americans in Tijuana made fear in Southern California. This happened today and Mexican prosecutors tried to decide whether the youths were involved in the country's violent drug trade or innocent victims of a brutal crime. The victims were two men and two women in their teens and early 20. They said they were headed for a night of partying across the border only to be found strangled, stabbed and beaten a few days later. Mexican officials are investigating whether any of the four San Diego area victims had ties to the drug trade. This was after a toxicology report tested positive for cocaine on the body of Brianna Hernandez. She was either 18 or 19. Another victim was Oscar Jorge Garcia. He was about 23 years old. He was in the San Diego area in January 2008 with six illegal immigrants in the car. It was never charged. This is all the information I could find.

British Explorers

British explorers in northern Canada went to measure the thickness of floating Arctic sea ice. They ended their expedition short of reaching the North Pole due to an early summer ice melt. That's what the team said on Thursday. Explorers Pen Hadow, Ann Daniel, and Martin Hartley had planned a three month journey to the North Pole. It ended their trek Wednesday, approximately 304 miles from their destination. That's what Hadow siad. The trio stopped after 73 days. They measured the thickness of floating sea ice to provide data to scientists studying the impact of global warming in the region. This year, the summer melt came a little early. That's what Hadow said during a Webcast conference from Resolute Bay in northern Canada. We would have rather reached the Pole if we could have, but we've always regarded as the cherry on the cake. He also said that. Information the team gathers could make a better understanding of global warming. This is believed to be the main enemy in the rapidly melting polar ice cap that is freeing up new sea routes and untapped mineral resources on the ocean bottom. This is all the information I could find on this subject.

Attack on Sri Lanka war zone hospital

Artillery shells went through a hospital with wounded civilians in Sri Lanka's war zone for a second day Wednesday. This event killed at least 50 people. They forced the medical staff to huddle in bunkers for safety. That's what the doctors said. Health workers at the makeshift medical facility said they were so impressed by the crush of the wounded and the unrelenting shelling of the area they could do little but give gauze and bandages to the roughly 1,000 patients waiting for treatment. The strike on the hospital came as the government marched on with its offensive to destroy the Tamil Tiger rebels. It is also to end their quarter decade quest for a separate homeland. There has been a wave of artillery bombardments across the war zone. Itbegan over the weekend and has barely let up in five days. That's what the health workers said. The weekend attacks alone may have killed as many as 1,000 people. That's what doctors said. The government said its troops are not responsible for the shelling . They also said that the military has not fired heavy weapons in the area in weeks. This is all the information I could find.

Space Junk on Hubble Mission

Space shuttle Atlantis is now in a rough orbital neighborhood. It is a place littered with thousands of pieces of space junk going around the Earth at nearly 20,000 mph. There are more pieces of shattered satellites and used up rockets in this region than astronauts have ever met. The crew must be there for more than a week to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. As soon as the job is complete, the shuttle will go back to safety. The telescope orbits about 350 miles above Earth. It is a far dirtier place than where shuttles normally fly. All those tiny junk raise the constant threat of a potentially fatal collision. It's a riskier environment when we go to this altitude. That's what safety chief Bryan O'Connor said. Hubble was too dangerous because flying to the telescope is climbing to a different orbit than the international space station. That means the shuttle cannot use the outpost as a safe harbor in an emergency.NASA now puts the risk for a collision with junk during the mission at 1 in 229. It's greater than flights to the space station but lower than the agency's initial estimates. This is all I could find out and I wonder if the people will suceed in their mission.

Repairing Hubble

Atlantis blasted off Monday for the Hubble Space Telescope on the most delicate and dangerous repair job ever in orbit. This is a mission so dangerous that for the first time a second shuttle stands ready to rescue the seven astronauts if something goes wrong. It will be the last visit to the aging observatory. The work will include five spacewalks in a high orbit strewn with space junk. The astronauts will try to fix equipment that was never designed to be fixed with in space. They will not have a choice of using the international space station as a safe harbor in a crisis. The improvements will extend the life of one of the space program's proudest achievements. I have full confidence that they'll pull off a success and if they do, we'll have a Hubble for at least five, six, eight years more. That's what Ed Weiler said. He is NASA's science mission chief. The crew will replace Hubble's batteries and gyroscopes. They will also install two cameras and try fixing two broken science instruments. Mission Control wasted no time informing the astronauts that an early look at the launch video had uncovered nothing of concern. Some debris was spotted coming off the fuel tank. There is nothing that appeared to strike Atlantis. This is all I found out and I think it's very interesting.

Best and Worst paying jobs

It's better to be a doctor than a dicer. Food preparation and serving remains the nation's lowest paid job. The medical field still offers the nine best paid jobs in the U.S. The U.S. government's newly released Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates was based on 2008 data. The surgeon makes an average of $206,770 a year. That puts surgeons above anesthesiologists to have the best paying job in the country. Internists now earn a bit more than prosthodontists. Prosthodontists are people who make and fit false teeth. The top 10 jobs rank the same as a year ago. The biggest change is a nearly $10,000 a year drop in pay for natural sciences managers. They are people who run labs and research facilities. The 25 best and 25 worst-paying jobs hasn't changed much. The best paying 25 jobs are all the same as last year with some minor rearrangements. The worst paying one job fell off the list Agriculture graders and sorters now make enough to rank as the 26th worst paid job in America. Postal workers and models will be happy to know that their average annual pay increased more than anyone else's. Postal workers make 23.2% more than a year ago. This brings them up to an annual salary of $54,550. Models didn't make nearly as much to begin with. Now they're up 20.4% to $30,160 a year. This is all I found out.

5/9 Tennis Lesson

Today I had a tennis lesson with Coach Doug. Uncle Toss drove me and Shayn to Broadstone. When I got there, I went in and showed the person in the front desk my card. After that I walked to the court where the lesson was being held at. I started off by running 3 laps around the court. Then I had to jumprope and he told me that I improved on it. Then he gave me some feeds to my forehand and he saw that I didn't put my racket in the right position. I fixed the problem and we continued the lesson. Then he noticed that after I hit each ball I just stood still. He said that we were going to work on it next week. That's all I learned today from this tennis lesson.

Turtle

Paleontologists say a 75-million-year-old turtle fossil was found in southern Utah. This fossil has a clutch of eggs inside it. This is making it the first prehistoric pregnant turtle found in the United States. At least three eggs are visible from the outside of the fossil. Montana State University researchers this week have been studying images taken from a CT scan in search of others inside. A Montana State graduate student is Michael Knell. He says the turtle was probably about a week from laying her eggs when she died and became fossilized for millions of years in sandstone. The fossil was found in 2006 in a remote part of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The eggs weren't discovered until after it sat in storage for two years and was being examined by a volunteer. This is all I could find and it's kind of weird there were eggs found with the fossil.

Hubble

The Hubble Space Telescope is about to get one last call. The risks have never been higher.
On Monday, astronauts will rocket away to the most famous telescope of modern times. They'll be taking up new scientific instruments. It is replacement parts for broken cameras and fresh batteries that should keep Hubble running for 5 to 10 years. This cosmic scale grand finale has stalled seven months by a telescope breakdown . It will be NASA's most daring mission yet of the 19 year old orbiting observatory. The observatory is very captivating. It also has twinkling jewel in the sky representing $10 billion of investment. It never happened before for spacewalking astronauts trying to fix dead science instruments on the Hubble. The equipment that was never meant to be handled in orbit. Before they've just traded out the whole thing at the telescope. Five spacewalks will be performed in as many days by two repair teams. Two of the repairmen have visited Hubble before. This is they were chosen for this difficult job on a par with operating room surgery. Hubble needs a hug. That's what the chief repairman said. He is John Grunsfeld. He will be making his third trip to the telescope. Space shuttle Atlantis and its crew of seven will face danger from space junk. This is because of Hubble's high and littered orbit 350 miles up. They will need someone to come and get them fast if their ship gets serious damage during launch or later in flight. They will not have the luxury of camping out at the international space station while awaiting rescue. The space station will be in another orbit and impossible to reach.

Pika

A tiny mammal that can't handle warm weather could become the first animal in the lower 48 states to get Endangered Species Act protection. This is mainly because of climate change.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are responding to a petition from environmentalists. It will launch in a review of the American pika. It will also enter findings by Feb. 1, 2010. The agency agreed that there's a lot of information showing that climate change may threaten the pika's habitat and range. The service knows that climate change is real. It is the biggest conservation challenge of our time. That's what Diane Katzenberger said. She is a Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman in Denver. The pika is a furry big eared relative of the rabbit. It lives mostly in rocky mountain slopes in 10 Western states. It is well suited for alpine conditions. Even brief exposure to temperatures of 78 degrees or warmer can cause death for these small animals that's why they could become the first animal in the lower 48 states to get Endagered Species Act Protection. I think that this is sad for the pika because they can die so easily.

Swine Flu

Mexico began to get out from its swine flu isolation. It tried to get its business Tuesday. Vendors once again showing their goods andthe familiar noise of busy traffic and music. There were still signs of the virus that set off world health alarms. A Texas woman who lived near the Rio Grande was confirmed as the 28th person to die from the virus. Across Mexico people were happily predicting this week's reopening of businesses, restaurants, schools and parks, after a five days. We have a lot of confidence nothing is going to happen. That's what Irineo Moreno Gonzales said. He is 54 and a security guard. On Tuesday he limited takeout customers to four at a time at a usually crowded downtown Starbucks. He also said Mexicans have the same spirit we've always had. We're ready to move forward. The Texas woman was the second to die of swine flu in the U.S. She didn't live far from the Mexico border. She also had medical conditions. The toddler also who died of swine flu last week during a visit to Houston, Texas. That's what health officials said. Her death raises the epidemic's global toll to 28. This disease seems to be going away and that's good.

US helps lower climate warming gases

The Obama administration called hydrofluorocarbons is used a lot in refrigerators and air conditioner. This is very significant to the threat of climate change Monday. A senior State Department official stopped short of buying a formal proposal last week. It was by the two small island nations of Micronesia and Mauritius. It was to alter the ozone treaty known as the Montreal Protocol by cutting HFCs by 90 percent by 2030. The treaty tells the use of HFCs is a class of powerful greenhouse gases. This has something to do with CFCs. CFCs have now been destroyed. HFCs do not harm the ozone layer. They are potent greenhouse gases. They are up to 10,000 times more so than carbon dioxide. Micronesia and Mauritius wanted to include an HFCs phase out in the ozone treaties conversation planned for November. They are calling it a matter of survival. The survival is for their island inhabitants as sea levels rise. The deadline for making such a deal was this week. The idea ran into some resistance in the White House. This was during a year when the administration was considering all its negotiating chips. This was for the successor to the Kyoto climate treaty that will expires in 2012. This is good news.

Swine Flu in Europe

The swine flu has spread deeper into the United States. It also has spread deeper into Europe and Latin America. Mexico's health chief said that Sunday could be time to reopen businesses and schools in the nation. This where the outbreak likely began. The virus spread to Colombia in the first case in South America. A flu season is about to begin in the Southern Hemisphere. More cases were confirmed in Europe and North America. The World Health Organization said at least 787 people have been sickened worldwide. Dr. Richard Besser is acting chief of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said that the swine flu is spreading just as easily as regular winter flu. This is with 226 cases in 30 U.S. states. The good news is that we're not seeing some of the things in the virus that have been associated in the past. The past virus was a more damaging flu. That's what Besser said. I's encouraging but it doesn't mean that we're safe. Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said the virus has killed 19 people in Mexico. It also sickened at least 506 people. This is apparently peaked here between April 23 and April 28. There is a bad nationwide shutdown. It appears to have helped prevent the outbreak from becoming more serious. The swine flu seems to be spreading faster and that's bad.

Gunman

A gunman was wearing an Iraqi army uniform. The gunman opened fire on a U.S. military team Saturday. The guman killed two American soldiers and injured three others. This was at a combat outpost in northern Iraq. That's what the military said. A military statement said the attacker was killed after the ambush 12 miles of Mosul. This is one of the last urban strongholds for Sunni insurgents. In the past, attackers have used military and police uniforms to pass checkpoints. They also went to heavily guarded bases. Iraqi military officials said the gunman was an Iraqi soldier who also served as a Sunni Muslim preacher for an army unit. The officials spoke on condition because they didn't have permission to speak to the media. The attack will likely make more worries about militant attack in Iraqi. It also could be one of the obvious cases of a member of Iraq's security. The Iraq's security forces was targeting U.S. troops. On Feb. 24, two Iraqi police officers in Mosul opened fire. This was on a visiting U.S. military team. The U.S. military team killed one American soldier and an interpreter. The gunmen is not found. It's kind of sad that the gunman killed two American soldiers for no reason.

Fungus

The U.S. Forest Service is closing thousands of caves and former mines. They are closing the caves and mines in national forests. These forests are in 33 states in an effort to control a fungus. This fungus has already killed about 500,000 bats. Bats have been dying very quickly.The problem was first spotted in New York. Within two years this fungus has spread to caves in West Virginia and Virginia. There's no evidence the fungus is harmful to people. Researchers believe the fungus is spread from bat to bat. They have not ruled out the possibility that humans that walk from cave to cave might help to transmit the fungus on their shoes and equipment. A second order covering the Forest Service's 13-state Southern region should be issued later this month. The sites will be closed for up to a year. The orders follow a March request by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for people to voluntarily stay out of caves in 17 states. Biologists are concerned the fungus could kill endangered Indiana, Virginia, and Ozark big-eared and gray bats. This fungus is deadly if it killed that many bats already. This was the new thing that I learned.