PHOBIAS

The phone rang at midnight. There was a frantic voice on the other end. “I know it’s late. But it’s urgent. Please come round.” My friend was standing miserably in the hallway of her flat, pointing towards a closed door. “It’s in there, please do something, but be careful, it’s
really large.” I opened the bathroom door carefully not knowing what to expect, and there was a peaceful little spider in her bath.

“Going up in the lift doesn’t worry me, but some of our offices have large windows and I feel as if the ground is coming up towards me, making me want to jump. I tried explaining my fear of height to another girl in the office, but she laughed at me and told me not to be so silly. I know it’s silly but I can’t help it. I’ll do anything to avoid going into those offices -1 even stayed at home once because I didn’t want to go to a meeting in there.” “I wasn’t at all afraid of flying at that age, but I remember that it was a very bad flight. There was lots of turbulence; even the cabin crew
were falling about. I was frightened for the whole-journey.

If I look up and see a plane and think about flying, my heart starts beating faster. When I’m actually on a plane, I feel sick and physically stop myself from standing up and screaming. The only way I can cope with it is to pretend it’s not happening to me. I sit rigid, next to the
aisle, staring at the seat in front. I can’t look out of the window. I count the number of seats – anything to avoid acknowledging the fact that I’m flying. It’s so unnatural to be thousands of metres up with all that open space around you.”

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

Although the house needed decoration and repair, the Longs decided to buy it. It was rather big, the price was very low and it was in the centre of London. Both Mr. and Mrs. Long had jobs in the city, so this was important. There was also a good school nearby for their six-year-old daughter, Jane, to go to. Some time later, they learnt about the owner of the house and the terrible things that happened there.

The first sign of trouble came just before they moved in. The workmen who did the redecoration refused to work in the house after dark. “I’m frightened”, one of them said. Then, when the Longs started living in the house, they noticed that the rooms were cold, even though it was the middle of a warm summer. Their daughter began waking up in the middle of the night, screaming. She said she could hear strange voices and that they belonged to dead people. The voices told her that somebody had killed them in the house and buried their bodies in the garden. “At first we thought she was just having nightmares, but then my husband and I heard strange noises, as well, “Mrs. Long says. Sometimes, they both heard more than just strange noises. “One night, just before George and I went to bed, we heard a woman’s voice that seemed to come from nowhere. It said only a few words, ‘No, no!  Stop!’ But we both heard it very clearly”, Mrs. Long says. Shortly after this, Mrs. Long learnt from a neighbour more about the history of the house. It once belonged to Gordon Taplow, who hanged himself in prison. They say that he murdered three women in the kitchen of the house and dismembered their bodies.

Then he buried the various pieces of the bodies in different parts of the garden. After his arrest and death in 1959, many people bought and sold the house several times, but nobody ever lived in it for very long. Months, and even years, passed without anybody living in it at all. Mr. and Mrs. Long think that they know the reason for this. “Although nobody has found the bodies of the three women in the garden, he must have buried them somewhere. Therefore the house is haunted by their ghosts. My husband and i are not superstitious but what other possible explanation is there?”

THE COMPUTER

The automatic electronic digital computer is a machine that utilizes electronic circuits to manipulate data expressed in a symbolic form according to specific rules in a predetermined but self-directed way. In brief, it is a machine which uses electronic circuits to handle symbolic data. However, even this simplified definition is somewhat hard to absorb as a whole so let’s look at its individual parts to understand it better.
First of all, the computer is a machine. This means that it is inanimate . As it is non-living, it requires an outside power source and without this source it stops working. This also means it can perform only those activities for which the basic capabilities have been specifically designed into the machine. In other words, it is limited to its designed capabilities and the directions given to it. If separated from its outside power source, it ceases to function.Second, it is automatic. This means that once started, it continues to run without outside interference. Third, it is electronic; that is, it is made up of electronic circuits and runs on electrical energy.
Fourth, the computer is a symbol manipulator. It manipulates data,not physical entities. These data are represented as electronic impulses within the machine. These electronic signals are combined to form number (digital) representations of data. Electronic devices are two-state devices. For example, a switch is either on or off, a spot on the surface of a magnetic tape is either magnetized or not magnetized. Therefore, it seems natural and reasonable to use the base 2 or binary number system as the basic data-representation method in the computer. Only two digits exist in the binary number system, 0 (zero) and 1 (one). They can easily be matched to the two states of the electronic devices. Combinations of 0′s and l’s can be used to represent non-numeric data as well as numeric data. Fifth, the computer must follow specific rules in manipulating data.
These rules are, in the main, the rules of Boolean algebra. That is, the computer can perform only the processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and comparison in addition to data transfer between components. Sixth, the computer must follow a predetermined sequence of processes. That is, someone (the programmer) must prepare a programme for the computer to follow.
Finally, the computer can follow the predetermined sequence in a self-directed way. It can store the programme within its own memory and then follow it through under its own direction, without outsideguidance. That is, the computer can be made, in effect, to learn a process, store the instructions in its memory, and follow them through, unaided by further supervision and direction. This stored-programme characteristic is what differentiates the computer from other data processing machines. The instructions are stored in the memory and the memory is accessible to a user. Since the memory is within reach of the user, the instructions can be changed easily. The computer can thus be given the ability to handle many different jobs. It is much more flexible than the “programmable” accounting machines because its programmes are a sequence of logic and arithmetic operations.

EXPLORERS OF AMERICA

For many years people believed that Europeans were the first to travel to America and that it was discovered by the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus. But, in fact, many travellers had reached America before him. Some historians claim that sailors from China crossed the Pacific to Mexico in AD 460. According to others, although there is not enough evidence, Asians other than the Chinese crossed the Bering Strait to Alaska long before this date and moved through North
America on to South America.
Irish explorers may also have visited America in the ninth and tenth centuries. Irish people living in Iceland before the Norsemen, who came from Scandinavia, reached ii in the ninth century. They may have sailed from Iceland to America after the Norsemen arrived in Iceland.
The Norsemen themselves may also have visited America. We learn this from their stories. They were used to sailing long distances. Some
Norse stories tell of a Norseman called Bjarni Herjolfsson, who visited North America in AD 986. Another Norseman named Leif Ericsson probably lived for a time in Newfoundland in Canada and returned to Greenland. However, the first Western explorer whose success we can be sure about was Christopher Columbus. He left Spain on August 3, 1492, and on October 12th, he arrived in the Bahamas. Columbus thought he had arrived in the Indies, the name then used for Asia. That is why he called the people there Indians. He spent many weeks sailing around the Caribbean and then went back to Spain. He made several more voyages to the New World until 1504, though he never actually landed in North America.
However, America was named after another Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who was a friend of Columbus’ and who later explored the coastline of the New World.
Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512) was a successful Florentine
30 businessman and navigator who was knowledgeable in geography and cosmography. He was also the financial representative of the Medici, who were influential people in the fifteenth century. It was mainly for these reasons that he got involved in various expeditions at the time , made acquintance of Columbus and was of great help to hirr Although
he did not actually join in any of the Columbus expeditions, he was responsible for their organisation. He obtained the ships and the necessary supplies, such as food.
Vespucci’s own expeditions took place at a later date. To find answers to the questions raised by Columbus’ claims to have reached
40 Asia by travelling west, Vespucci was employed by the Spanish and the Portuguese to organise new expeditions. The first of these was in 1499 – 1500, the second in 1501 -1502. During these expeditions, he travelled down the South American coastline, from Venezüella to Brazil, and discovered the mouth of the Amazon river, which received plenty of attention.
Although Columbus is considered the most important explorer of all times, he could not achieve what Vespucci did. Vespucci proved that America was a new continent-and not a part of Asia. For this reason, the continent was named America after him in 1507.

A ROSE-RED CITY

These words describe the ancient, ruined city of Petra, hidden in the mountains of southern Jordan. The rose-red colour comes from the sandstone of the mountains into which caves, temples, tombs and monuments were built.  Because it was surrounded by mountains, this beautiful city stayed undiscovered through the ages until the 18th century, when the archeologists found the way in. The first scientific investigation of the place, however, was possible towards the end of the following century.
Today tourists can enter Petra through the same deep path, which twists for one mile through the mountain. At times, it is so narrow that the walls block out the sky leaving the traveller in complete darkness. At the end of the road the darkness suddenly turns into brilliant sunshine in the Wadi of Urn, where the magnificient columns of the 15 Treasury, Petra’s most famous monument, tower up to the blue sky.
The central city area lies in the Wadi Mousa and this is mainly where the most beautiful walls, steps, fountains and temples are found.
Now the city lies quietly under the hot desert sun, and nobody lives there except the archeologists, museum keepers and guides and a small number of Bedouin families who still inhabit the caves high up on the hillsides. And the tourists, of course, who come every year to see the ancient, secret city of rose-red stone. They listen carefully to the guides who tell them that Petra was once a wealthy city of the ancient world. It began as a watering place for the caravans and developed into an important trading centre.
The hills around Petra were settled in the fifth century B.C. by the people of an ancient tribe, the Edomites, who began to build the city. However, it was actually the Nabateans, who settled the Wadi Mousa in 310 B.C. that brought wealth and prosperity to the city. They built beautiful temples to worship the sun and made delicately painted pottery. They also established a well-developed administrative system to live in peace. A long-line of Nabatean kings came to an end in 106 AD, when Petra was occupied by the Romans and became part of the Roman province of Arabia. At first, the city flourished under Roman administration. The Romans built beautiful monuments and made new improvements to the city, such as the Collonade Street, which is very famous among archeological circles. However, as the economy of the whole eastern area began to change, the trade routes disappeared and Petra declined. By the sixth century AD, there was no longer any mention of Petra in ancient writings.

Ecucation

Few people nowdays regard education as a privilege. They think that education is a special right for those who get it. Almost everyone recognises that it is important for every child to have the opportunity to learn. But in my opinion there is too much emphasis on equality in education and not enough on quality. The reason for this is that politics and sociology interface with educational standars. In other words, standars of education are influenced by politics and sociology.

ash from a colcano: it may remain aloft

The 1982 eruption of Mexico’s El Chichon volcano sent vast quantities of ash high into the stratosphere. If a University of New Mexico scientist is correct, the as which went up hasn’t all come down yet.

Most scientists assume that volcanic ash falls to earth within a year or two after an eruption. But frans J.M. Rietmeijer says that he can show that tiny particles collected in 1985 by a balloon above Texas had come out from El Chichon. What’s more he believes that because volcanic particles are flat and fall more slowly than spherical particles, they may remain aloft for a hundred years or more. The balloon was originally designed to collect particles of meteoric origin. It took samples of the air at an altitude of 35 kilometres near the top of El Chichon’s plume of ash. Rietmeijer says the particles that he analysed chemically match the ash from the volcano.

Trends

Forecasting the future is a risky business. But that doesn’t mean we can’t say anything about the next decade. In fact, one tren is almost completely predictable: population growth. The population of the UK, currently just over 57 milllon, is expected to keep rising to hit 59 million by 2010. Most signifacnt is how the structure of that 59 milllon by 2001. Most significant is how the structure of that 59 million will change. The number of 16 to 19 – year- olds has been falling since the baby boom generation reached adolescence in the earl 1980′s, and it will stay low through the 90′s and into the next century. On the other hand, the proportion of older people  grew by 2011 more than 45 %of us will be over 50
Some implications for the next centruy are clear. Fewer school leavers and a workforce that is growing will have an impact on the labour market. Employers may have to look elsewere to fill vacancies – to women with children and older people.

Nottingham

Nottingham is a busy industrial, commercial and university town with almost 300,000 inhabitants. Close to the centre of one of Britain’s richest coalfields it is important in the Midlands for its many kinds of industry. Nottingham is an industrial city.

Law Of Conservation of Matter: Everything Must Go Somewhere

We always talk about consuming or using up matter resources, but actually we don’t consume any matter. We only borrow some of the earth’s resources for a while – taking them from the earth, carrying them to another part of the globe, processing them, using them, and then discarding, reusing, or recycling them. In the process of using matter, we may change it to another form. But we can neither create nor destroy any measurable amount of matter. This results from the law of conservation of matter: In any ordinary physical or chemical change, matter is neither created nor destroyed but merely changed from one form to another. This  law tells us that we can never really throw any matter away. everything must go somewhere and all we can do is to recycle some of the matter we thing we have thrown away.
We can collect dust and soot from the smokestacks of industrial plants, but these solid wastes must then go somewhere. Cleaning up smoke is a misleading practice, because the invisible gaseous and very tiny particle pollutants left are often more damaging than the large solid particles that are removed. We can collect garbage and remove solid wastes from sewage, but they must either be burned (air pollution), dumped into rivers, lakes and oceans (water pollution) or deposited on the land (soil pollution and water pollution if they wash away)
We can reduce air pollution from the internal combustion engines in cars by using electric cars. But since electric car batteries must be recharged every day, we will have to build more electric power plants. If these are coal-fired, their smokestacks will add additional and even more dangerous air pollutants to the air; more land will be scarred from strip mining, and more water will be polluted from the acids that tend to leak out of coal mines. We could use nuclear power plants to produce the extra electricity needed. But then we risk greater heat or thermal pollution of rivers and other bodies of water used to cool such plants.
Although we can certainly make the environment cleaner, talk of cleaning up the environment and pollution free cars, products or industries is a scientific absurdity. The law of conservation of matter tells us that we will always be face with pollution of some sort. Thus, we are also faced with the problem of trade-off. In turn, these frequently involve subjective and controversial scientific, political, economic and ethical judgements about what is a dangerous pollutant level, to what degree a pollutant must be controlled, and what amount of money we are willing to pay to reduce a pollutant to a harmless level.