Free extra class work...

I have done some exercises from the OM grammar webpage to improve my knowledge in that units I had not understood quite good.
Teacher, you could see the exersises I did here ===> http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/omexercise/articulos/unit28.htm

The carnation hawkress' story (Review)

The story is about a typical Colombian family who manages to survive in this society with all the troubles which it is filled. In the family they are seven: the mother, 2 boys, 3 girls and a dog. The 3 girls are Maria aurora, Rosina and Adriana Andrea. The oldest boy is called Roberto and the baby is called Jose Willington. The family considers the dog as a relative more, it’s called Happy.
Every day they are at an avenue hawking carnations where the traffic lights bring cars to a dead halt. The top seller is Adriana Andrea who moves swiftly among cars and traffic lights. I think, she had something inside her which makes attracts people´s attention. They are very happy. One day a couple French driving a car stares at Adriana Andrea and got captivated by her and decided take her with them. Days later they talked to her mother to adopt Adriana. Finally the Adriana’s mother accepted and they took Adriana with them. After she had gone her family missed her a lot and remembered all the things they did together before. Roberto, who tells the story, hopes to find her some day and live with her sister again, and protect her from anything which could take her far away again.
In the end they never found her. They will carry on hawking carnations at that avenue.
The story teaches us how difficult could be the life for the poor and even for everybody who manages to survive in a society as hard as Colombia. All in all we have to face this and keep working for a better Colombia.

The pursuit of happiness!!!

The pursuit of happiness is an excellent film which tells us how difficult could be the life of a man, looking for a better job and facing all the troubles of a big city alone with his son. Will Smith plays Chris Gardner who is a bright and talented, but marginally employed salesman. Struggling to make ends meet, Gardner finds himself and his five-year-old son evicted from their San Francisco apartment with nowhere to go. When Gardner lands an internship at a prestigious stock brokerage firm, he and his son endure many hardships, including living in shelters, in pursuit of his dream of a better life for the two of them.
I think, this is one of the most important films in the Will smith’s career, and like always, in his films, the acting was excellent. The film is filled with some beautiful scenes between a father and his son. The scrip was really well-written and the dialogue was certainly excellent.
Don’t miss it as it will change the way you see the life and its hardships and this is a film for everybody, excellent for having a free time with your family.
"Don't ever let somebody says that you can't do something. If you got a dream; you got to protect it. If you want to do something, go get it. Period."

¡Listening exercises!

The emperor’s new clothes is a famous fairy tale, the story is about an emperor of a prosperous city who cares more about clothes than military pursuits or entertainment hires two swindlers who promise him the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they tell him, is invisible to anyone who was either stupid or unfit for his position. The Emperor cannot see the (non-existent) cloth, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing stupid; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they dress him in mime. The Emperor then goes on a procession through the capital showing off his new "clothes". During the course of the procession, a small child cries out, "But he has nothing on!" The crowd realizes the child is telling the truth. The Emperor, however, holds his head high and continues the procession. I think that the story teaches us a really good moral; people don’t pay attention to their mistakes and continue with their lives without thinking they have done something bad and also without trying to solve the problem.

The Little Red Riding Hood is one of the most fairy tales; this story is about a girl who was walking through the woods to deliver food to her sick grandmother. A wolf wants to eat the girl but is afraid to do so in public. He approaches the girl, and she tells him where she is going. He suggests the girl pick some flowers, which she does. In the meantime, he goes to the grandmother's house and gains entry by pretending to be the girl. He swallows the grandmother whole, and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandmother. When the girl arrives, he swallows her whole too. A hunter, however, comes to the rescue and cuts the wolf open. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed. They fill the wolf's body with heavy stones, which kill him. The moral of the story could be sum up in the words that our moms or our grannies always say to us: “Don’t speak to a stranger.” We don’t have to accept anybody to help us if we don’t know him/her because that person can make us bad.

Jane Eyre’s story (review)

This story is about a girl who grew up with her uncle’s family. In her childhood she had some troubles with them because they thought that she was like a prying girl, specially her cousins who always were fighting her. Her uncle’s wife punished her all the time and she felt sorrowful. After some time the uncle’s wife took Jane to a far away school but Jane liked it.
In that school she lived many years and she learnt many things, she met friends and also she was a teacher there. She found out a work as a governess in a small town and found out the love too. She had to face many problems there and she decided to leave the small town and her lover. Then she worked in other small town where she met some relatives. At the end of the story, the lover she left in the last town met her again in the next town and apologized her, because of the troubles he had caused her; she accepted him again and they lived together in woodland.
At the beginning, the story seems so boring but as soon as you walk over the pages, the story becomes interesting. Also, the story is so realistic and you can imagine many things while you are reading. Another advantage is that you can learn from Jane’s life. All in all, it’s a good story and I would recommend it to my friends.

Sweeney Todd 's review.

Sweeney Todd, directed by Tim Burton is a thrilling film. The story is about a man unjustly sent to prison that vows revenge, not only for that cruel punishment, but for the devastating consequences of what happened to his wife and daughter. When he returns to reopen his barber shop, Sweeney Todd becomes the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who "shaved the heads of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard from again."

I have never seen a film like this; it has great sound effects and frightening scenes. The acting was really excellent. Nowadays, Johnny Depp is one of the best actors. I think that the script was well-written and it’s filled with suspense and emotion. In all likelihood this movie is well worth seeing.

I’d recommend this film; you don’t have to miss it because it will change the way how you see a movie.

Light Exercise May Improve Quality of Life...

Heart failure patients who started an aerobic exercise program reported better quality of life after three months, though the activity only modestly reduced their risk of being hospitalized or dying over two and a half years, researchers have found.

The results appear to resolve the question of whether it is safe for medically stable patients with heart failure to engage in physical activity, since participants in the exercise group were no more likely to suffer an adverse event than those who were not exercising. Patients with heart failure have traditionally been told to rest, but that recommendation is changing in light of evidence that suggests physical activity is beneficial and may even increase survival rates in some patients.

Two studies, to be published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, report data from a controlled clinical trial sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. One analysis found that exercise improved overall well-being, while the other found that it slightly reduced the risk of hospital admissions and death.

Dr. Christopher M. O’Connor, the principal investigator of the trial and director of the Duke Heart Center at the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, N.C., said: “The message for the average heart failure patient is: ‘We believe there are benefits from exercise. Quality of life is important, and physical fitness is important.”

Can we, should we, erase bad memories?

In the film Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet use a specialist medical service to obliterate their memories of their relationship. Science fiction? Only for the time being, it seems. The Dutch authors of a recent study in Nature Neuroscience think that they are on track to developing a drug to blunt bad memories. The practical applications are immense. A spotless mind pill could bring relief to millions who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Here’s what the researchers found. When 60 student volunteers saw pictures of spiders they received a mild electric shock, enough to develop a fear response. Then half of them received the beta-blocker propranolol, a drug used to steady the heartbeat; the control group only a placebo. The students who received propanolol were able to look at the spiders without fear. In other words, their emotional memory had been erased, but not the "declarative memory" of the spider images themselves.

This is consistent with previous research which suggests that emotional memory is controlled by the amygdala in the brain and declarative memory by the hippocampus. Perhaps propanolol disrupts protein synthesis in the amygdala, the researchers hypothesised. (Mercatornet's news)

North Korean rocket launch caught on film!!!

A striking satellite image released yesterday shows the moment North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Sunday in defiance of international pressure.

The image was taken from an altitude of 308 miles (496km) by the WorldView-1 satellite moments after the rocket blasted off at 11.10am local time.

North Korea's official news agency said the Taepodong-2 rocket placed a satellite in orbit that is now broadcasting revolutionary songs. The Pentagon claimed the launch failed and the rocket broke up and fell into the Pacific Ocean.

The launch triggered an emergency meeting of the UN security council amid fears the launch was a covert military exercise. The rocket is capable of carrying warheads and has a range of 4,160 miles, putting Alaska and Hawaii within its reach.

A problem like ours, check it out!!!

With its picturesque waterfalls, tranquil waterways and a colony of the critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphins, the pristine beauty of the Mekong river flowing through Siphandone (Four Thousand Islands) in southern Laos, is a magnet for tourists and an important site for international conservation.

But this unique corner of the world is threatened by a government plan to build a hydroelectric dam only a few kilometres upstream — a plan that has triggered a cascade of protests from environmental organisations and international scientists. If the dam goes ahead it will have a major impact on the Irrawaddy dolphins and another endangered species, the giant catfish. It will also severely reduce the flow to the Khone Falls, Asia's largest waterfall.

Carl Middleton, the Bangkok spokesman of International Rivers, an environmental NGO said: "This stretch of the Mekong is globally renowned for its biodiversity. Building the dam would block the massive fish migrations that help feed millions of people within the region. The stakes are huge. This is one dam that must never be built."

On the Cambodian side of the border the Mekong river is recognised internationally as a conservation site by the UN's wetland conservation body, Ramsar. There are moves to do the same on the Laos side.

In March 2006, the the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (LPDR) signed an agreement with Mega First Corporation Malaysia, to do a feasibility study to build a 240MW dam across the Mekong's Hou Sahong channel, bordering Cambodia. A Project Development Agreement was signed in 2008, but as yet no final decision has been made by the LPDR.

No construction has started on the dam yet. Tomorrow, International Rivers together with local NGO partners in Thailand and Cambodia will launch a campaign to stop the Don Sahong Dam project as part of a Save the Mekong Campaign. The launch coincides with the International Day of Action for Rivers. (the guardian's news)

Obama must pass climate laws ahead of Copenhagen, Danish minister warns

American leadership on climate change will be undermined if the Obama administration does not swiftly pass laws to reduce carbon pollution, according to Denmark's minister for climate and energy.

Connie Hedegaard said Obama must move from promises to action and push through global warming legislation ahead of the climate change summit in Copenhagen this December. Without that she said it would be hard for the US to exercise a credible leadership role at the summit.

"We can postpone anything but we have been postponing things for many years. We must come from this era where we talk about what to do and instead come to the era where we actually do things. We must come to that now," Hedegaard told the Guardian.

"The deadline set — 2009 — is actually set also by the former Bush administration. It is not just Denmark or Europe or somebody who set that deadline. It is set also by the United States. We must deliver on that deadline and I can see no better alternative than having cap and trade." (the whole article in this page http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/04/climate-obama-denmark)

¡Stem cell breakthrough!

Scientists have found a way to make an almost limitless supply of stem cells that could safely be used in patients while avoiding the ethical dilemma of destroying embryos.

In a breakthrough that could have huge implications, British and Canadian scientists have found a way of reprogramming skin cells taken from adults, effectively winding the clock back on the cells until they were in an embryonic form.

The work has been hailed as a major step forward by scientists and welcomed by pro-life organisations, who called on researchers to halt other experiments which use stem cells collected from embryos made at IVF clinics.

Sir Ian Wilmut, who led the team that cloned Dolly the Sheep and heads the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University where the work was done, said: "This is a significant step in the right direction. The team has made great progress and combining this work with that of other scientists working on stem cell differentiation, there is hope that the promise of regenerative medicine could soon be met."

Stem cells have the potential to be turned into any tissue in the body, an ability that has led researchers to believe they could be used to make "spare parts" to replace diseased and damaged organs and treat conditions as diverse as Parkinson's disease, diabetes and spinal cord injury.

Because the cells can be made from a patient's own skin, they carry the same DNA and so could be used without a risk of being rejected by the immune system.

Scientists showed they could make stem cells from adult cells more than a year ago, but the cells could never be used in patients because the procedure involved injecting viruses that could cause cancer. Overcoming the problem has been a major stumbling block in efforts to make stem cells fulfil their promise of transforming the future of medicine.

Now, scientists at the universities of Edinburgh and Toronto have found a way to achieve the same feat without using viruses, making so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell therapies a realistic prospect for the first time. (from the guardian)

¡Environmental troubles!

Who wants to be a eugenicist? Not President Barack Obama, I’m sure, and yet his reversing of the Mexico City Policy, which banned US foreign monies from going into organisations which perform or refer women for abortions, makes him an accomplice of a movement whose great aim, in the words of patron saint Margaret Sanger, is to stop the “unfit” breeding.

Now, billions of dollars of US foreign aid funds may go to groups for whom contraception, sterilization and abortion are all morally indifferent means to controlling the numbers of poor -- mostly brown -- people in the world.

And Australia wants to follow suit. The Howard government sided with the US Bush administration in banning such funds. But now Kevin Rudd’s Labour government is reconsidering its position on this. The Australian Greens, as expected, quickly came out calling for the restrictions to be lifted. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said: "Australia is now the only country that continues to enforce these draconian restrictions on our aid programs.”

With typical Green hyperbole and disingenuousness, she added: "34,000 mothers die in our region alone per year because of a lack of maternal health support. Australia's aid funding could be better used to reduce these alarming numbers. We need Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith to show compassion and to act now”.

It appears that the Greens’ idea of compassion is to promote the killing of babies. They may talk a lot about life but they actively support death, be it in the form of contraceptives, abortions or other anti-life policies. (A mercatornet news)