Nutritix

Category: Travel

  • Missing radioactive capsule found in Australia

    Missing radioactive capsule found in Australia

    Authorities in Western Australia say they have found a tiny radioactive capsule that went missing last month.

    Emergency services had “literally found the needle in the haystack”, they said.

    A huge search was triggered when the object was lost while being transported along a 1,400km (870 miles) route across the state. 

    Authorities released a close-up picture of the pea-sized capsule – which could cause serious harm if handled – on the ground among tiny pebbles.

    A serial number enabled them to verify they had found the right capsule, which is 6mm (0.24 inches) in diameter and 8mm long.

    It contains a small quantity of Caesium-137, which could cause skin damage, burns, or radiation sickness.

    Mining giant Rio Tinto apologized for losing the device, which is used as a density gauge in the mining industry.

    A 20m “hot zone” has now been established around the capsule and it will be placed into a lead container.

    It will be stored at a secure location in the town of Newman overnight before being transported to a secure facility in the city of Perth on Thursday.

    Announcing their find, the state emergency services paid tribute to “inter-agency teamwork in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds”.

    The capsule was found when a vehicle equipped with specialist equipment, which was traveling at 70 km/h (43 mph), detected radiation, officials said.

    Portable detection equipment was then used to locate the capsule, which was found about 2m (7ft) from the side of the road.

    The device is part of a density gauge, which was being used at Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia. 

    “The simple fact is the device should never have been lost,” said the head of the company’s iron ore division, Simon Trott. He thanked the authorities for the “pretty incredible recovery” of the capsule.

    Rio Tinto would be happy to reimburse the cost of the search if requested by the government, Mr. Trott added.

    Australian authorities have promised a review of existing laws on the matter. 

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told a news conference in Perth that the current fine for failing to safely handle radioactive substances is “ridiculously low”. It currently stands at A$1,000 ($700, £575) and A$50 ($35, £30) for every day that the offense continues.

  • The Secret Behind Babbel: Our Language Learning Approach Is Built On 3 Pillars

    The Secret Behind Babbel: Our Language Learning Approach Is Built On 3 Pillars

    Berlin is an international city where you’ll hear snippets of conversations in dozens of different languages on a daily. This is one reason why it’s the perfect city for Babbel’s headquarters — we are 600 language enthusiasts piling into one five-story building in the heart of Berlin. Babbel has employees from over 60 countries, speaking more languages than you can imagine, all working on one popular product in this space.

    Working here, I’m often asked how Babbel is so good at teaching people new languages. To answer this question, I decided to sit down with our own multilingual Belen Caeiro. She leads our Product Marketing team here at Babbel and knows the app inside and out. Here’s what she said about why learning a language with Babbel is so effective.

    Belen explained that she was lucky because her parents helped her get an international education. She lived in Spain, Singapore, the Philippines, the United States, and the Netherlands before coming to Berlin. Her life experience confirmed that Babbel is the right place for her:

    “I know that all the good things that have happened to me in life were possible thanks to a new language.”

    For Belen, there’s absolutely no doubt that today, probably more than ever, we must learn new languages in order to understand each other and integrate new perspectives into our way of thinking. Making this possible is the first pillar that Babbel’s learning is based on.

    “We learn a new language in order to speak it with other people. To make that possible, our product has a few special features,” explains Belen. She opened the Babbel app on her laptop and pointed to the overview of the available courses. “We categorize language learning content in Babbel into relevant topics.” Depending on the language, you’ll find cultural traits and the most common conversation topics right at the beginning. Using public transportation, ordering food, and expressing what you want —are all at the top of the list. 

    Belen points out that the learning content builds on itself, so it’s easy to stay oriented. But if you just want to refresh a few topics, you can also jump right in! Belen clicks “next” on a lesson and then on the microphone symbol: “We use our users’ feedback to continually optimize our product. Thanks to our customer service team, but also the feedback we collect in meetups, we know that our users want to practice their pronunciation. Our speech recognition feature in the product supports them in that.”

  • The song that changed the US

    The song that changed the US

    With Happy Birthday, Stevie Wonder successfully campaigned to honor Martin Luther King Jr with a national holiday, in a long career of socially conscious songwriting, writes Diane Bernard.

    On 15 January 1981, music legends Diana Ross and Gladys Knight, along with the “godfather of rap”, Gil Scott-Heron, joined renowned musician Stevie Wonder on stage at the National Mall in Washington, DC. The 50,000-strong audience chanted: “Martin Luther King Day, we took a holiday,” according to Scott-Heron’s 2012 memoir, The Last Holiday, as the stars began to sing Wonder’s hit song, Happy Birthday, a tribute to the murdered civil rights leader.

    “I just never understood/ How a man who died for good/ Could not have a day that would/ Be set aside for his recognition,” they sang, electrifying the crowd.

    The 1980 song represented the start of Wonder’s campaign to make the birthday of renowned peace activist, Martin Luther King Jr, into a federal holiday. For three years Wonder put his life on hold and dedicated tours, rallies, and marches to bring his vision to life – a quest that would establish the first holiday in the US that honored a black American.

    This year marks the 40th anniversary of US President Ronald Reagan signing into law the bill that established Martin Luther King Day. Many today might be surprised to realize the instrumental role Stevie Wonder played in getting the legislation passed. But in fact, the global superstar’s artistry and political activism were intertwined throughout his career, even before the MLK Day drive, as he repeatedly called attention to social issues of mid-century America.

    After Dr. King’s assassination in April 1968, US Representative John Conyers Jr from Detroit, Michigan, and Wonder’s congressman, introduced a bill to make the activist’s birthday a federal holiday. But for 13 years, the bill languished, facing opposition from southern Democrats and conservative Republicans. For years, Wonder had quietly advocated for the holiday. But then, in 1979, he shared a dream he had with King’s widow, Coretta Scott King. In a 2011 interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Wonder said: “I said to her… ‘I imagined in this dream I was doing this song. We were marching with petition signs to make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday.’”

    Scott King was excited, Wonder explained, but she also doubted his dream could come true at a time the nation was turning more and more conservative with the rise of Reaganism and New Right politicians in the Sun Belt (the Southern US), a reaction against President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s liberal agenda of the 1960s. But Wonder felt compelled by his dream and the next year he wrote Happy Birthday, for Hotter than July, a 1980 album that peaked at number three in the US charts and number two in the UK. Joined by Scott King, Wonder used his 1981 tour for that album as a worldwide drive to advocate for the holiday.

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