Avian pox spread to UK by insects. By Lim Kay Kiat

A new virus which affects many birds has been spreading rapidly in the United Kingdoms. This deadly virus has caused many birds to die. The cause of the spread is currently unknown, but scientists suspect that an insect like the mosquito could be responsible for this viral outbreak. However, scientists have also found that some birds were able to recover from this virus.
In my opinion, I think that this virus is very dangerous as If huge numbers of one species of birds are to die from this virus, they could very likely face a huge drop in their numbers or even extinction. Furthermore, this virus is a different from the one found in Europe. This shows that this virus mutates quickly and could pose a huge threat as the virus would quickly mutate to obsolete vaccines. In my opinion, I think that environmental agencies world wide should put in measures to increase the people's awareness of this virus so that people would report sightings of birds with this virus. This will in turn greatly decrease the number of birds with this virus and thus reducecing the speed in at which the virus is spreading. Furthermore I think that if this virus is not properly taken care of, it might mutate to infect humans like the bird flu virus.
Read the full article here!

Is cultural diversity a strength or weakness? By Lim Kay Kiat

Cultural diversity is a strength as these diversities complement one another. In Singapore there is a huge cultural diversity. This cultural diversity has greatly enriched the lives of Singaporeans. For example, in Singapore we have a huge variety of food ranging from Mee Rebus, a Malay dish, to Roti Prata, an Indian dish, to Lor Mee, a Chinese dish. Furthermore, this cultural diversity has also allowed people of different races in Singapore to know more about the traditions and the culture of other races. Through this multicutral understanding, Singaporeans have developed racial harmony. This has also helped local investors communicate well with their foreign partners from all round the world. Thus cultural diversity is a huge strength.

However, some people think that cultural diversity is a weakness as it brings instability and unhappiness. In Northern Ireland for example, the long fight between the Catholics and Protestants has caused a great suffering in Northern Ireland. Many lives have also been lost due to the existence of cultural diversity in Northern Ireland. These people think that cultural diversity brings about differences in the way people in society behaves. This causes people who are intolerant of these differences, to complain, fight and even riot. This causes instability and bring unhappiness, thus, these people think it is a weakness.

Rat's heart cells help create bio-robots. By: Soon Qi Wei

Recently, a group of USA scientists managed to implant heart cells of a rat into a small robot. The small robot, with a long leg and a short stump, would move every time the heart cell beats. Although the scientists do not have full grasp of the control and movements of these bio-bots, they say that if this project is successful, these bio-bots would be very useful in the scientific field. They could be used in many different fields like medicine and sensors. So far, the bio-bots have managed to move in a straight distance of 4mm per second.Personally, I believe that this is a huge scientific breakthrough as such if this project works out, robots that would could help carry things or detect unknown items in the ground might be created, making life much easier for us. Furthermore, these new inventions could help society greatly and in my opinion, these should be a technology that is worth researching. To read the full article, click here!

Printed books and magazines are no longer relevant for teens today. By Soon Qi Wei

Personally, I believe that printed books and magazines are no longer relevant for teens today. As we are in the technological age, social media has a huge impact on the lives of the new generation. Teenagers especially are always using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to search for latest trends and news. Furthermore, these websites are free of charge, unlike hard copies of books and magazines that have to be brought from stores or borrowed from the library. Thus this shows that printed books and magazines are no longer relevant for teenagers today.

However, many people still believe that books and magazines are still very relevant these days. For social media sites, the internet is required to connect to them. (keep your focus on books & mag, pls add 2-3 sentences)) As for books and magazines, they can be carried all around with you and it is very convenient to read or use. Even with latest technology like 3G or LTC, which allows a user to connect to the internet from anywhere, many people might not have it. therefore, books and magazines are still one of the most efficient ways of learning and are still indeed very relevant.

News Review : From Britain to Australia, but not on a plane

(QinYi  your post is all wrong. pls remove & pls go to my wikispaces site or refer to the other posts to see how its done) 
Friday, November 16, 2012. The Straits Times / Home / (pls 

From Britain to Australia, but not on a plane.

Australian Joshua Crook, 24 has been travelling over land for the past four months from London to Singapore here are the 21 countries he's been to :

England

France

Belgium

Luxembourg

Germany

Czech Republic

Austria

Hungary

Romania

Bulgaria

Turkey

Georgia

Russia

Kazakhstan

Mongolia

China

Vietnam

Cambodia

Thailand

Malaysia

Lastly, Singapore

Started in England on July the 14th 2012 

His budget was $22,000 of his savings from various jobs for his travels.

He also learnt Shaolin gongfu for close to four weeks in an academy in eastern China.

Should social media be carefully censored by parents

             Firstly, social media are rarely controlled.is currently not censored. Therefore, any sorts of things can be viewed online. There children surfing the net can pick bad habits online, such as using abusive language.They might also be able to interact with strangers. As a result, there strangers might influence them to do horrible things such as smoking, taking of drugs and all shorts(??) of other unthinkable things. Hence censorship by parents will help children to keep safe while using social media.

            Secondly, children are often being immature and inexperienced. Children might post ridiculous photos of themselves online and it might bring nasty comments by whoever that sees it online. As a result it would bring down their self-esteem and it would impact their character development. Therefore, when any child is using the social media it should be carefully censored by their parents.

The roles that parents and friends play in a teenagers life

                     The role of a parent is to give correct advice to their teenage child. Being  immature and inexperienced, a teenager would meet with a lot of difficulties in the course of their his life. They  Teenagers would need someone to pour of their questions to and the best person to do it to is their parents as they are closer to their parents compared to anyone else. A teenager would see their parents more then anyone else. As a result a parent can greatly influence their child to do the either the right or wrong thing.
              The role of a friend is being to be a pillar of support. Besides a parent, a friend is the second person a teenager would see most.  When a teenager is on bad terms with their parent, their friend would be the only person they would turn to to pour out their anger and frustrations. Beingfr A friend they must be able to give the right support and not influence their friend to do the wrong thing to lighten their anger.

ARTICLE - Child Poverty BBC News

Source: Child Poverty : Definition could include family breakdown
Recent figures showed fewer children in poverty but largely because falling wages have narrowed the gap between the poorest and average earners. Measuring income alone does little to represent the experience of those in poverty. A child is considered to be living in poverty if their household income is less than 60% of averages wages. It is said that life is unchanged for these children and a broader definition of child poverty would be needed. This would be one that looks at joblessness, educational failure and family breakdown as well as income. Building more affordable homes and reducing childcare costs were the keys to reducing child poverty, the charity added.
I believe that this matter is very worrying as it is very saddening to see children of very young age suffering due to family finance problems. Children especially of young age have the rights to have a carefree life whereby in which all they do is to eat, sleep, and play without any worries. However, if this child poverty continues, young children in the future would not know what 'real' childhood means. For this not to happen, i think that parents should work really hard to prevent their own child from suffering when born. 

ESSAY - The use of social media should be carefully censored by parents. Yes or No?

I personally believe that social media should be carefully censored by parents especially when it is young kids are using them. we are talking about. Even if it's a teenager, parents have the rights to keep a lookout of what their child is up to. The content of social media is not and are rarely censored. This would harm teenagers as if they who post careless messages on Twitter or Facebook. It will remain there forever even if he/she deletes it from their account. This would allow strangers or hackers to know what was posted. Also, personal information would allow strangers to know about them and might send spam emails to them which would not do them good.

Another reason is that social media has easy access to strangers. whereby Teenagers can go to online chatting websites and chat with strangers whom you do not know of. This is dangerous as you do  not know what these strangers are up to. Once you get "closer" to the stranger, he/she would threaten you to send him a photo of yourself and you would not know what he might do with that picture. For example, a 16 year old girl, named Amanda Todd, who made friends with a guy through an online chatting site and sent him a photo of her chest which the stranger sent to all her friends and even made a FaceBook group using that picture as the display photo. He followed her to wherever she went, and about a month later, she committed suicide. Hence social media needs to be censored to keep teens safe.

Printed books and magazines are no longer relevant for teens today? By Lim Kay Kiat

Printed books and magazines have been outdated by the technology age. They are no longer relevant to teens today as technology allows a better way of transferring information other than books and magazines. Books and magazines require a lot of work to produce and to be distributed and need a lot of space to store them. However in today’s context; teens prefer to have all these information stored in a small device called smart phones. Furthermore, it is much easier to transfer this information via smartphones as all it takes to pass this information to thousands of people is a simple click. Thus, books and magazines are no longer relevant to teens as technology has improved.

However, some people think that books and magazines still play an important role and are still relevant for teens. Books and magazines have no other functions besides being used for the transfer of information, unlike smart phones. This reduces the chances of teens getting distracted while wandering off while reading. Smart phones on the other hand have numerous uses and these act as distractions which cause teens to be unable to concentrate on reading. For example, teens often are unable to resist the temptation of games. Thus, a book or magazine is still required to help inculcate the habit of reading. if the teen reading the book or magazine does not want to get distracted by all these other functions of a smart phone. So, magazines and books are still relevant for teens today.

SPY CAMERA By Lim Kay Kiat

FOUND IN BBC NEWS 

A new form of technology has recently been invented for cameras. This new technology is a camera in a shape of a ball; this camera allows the user to take photos in all angles. This allows opens up more possibilities, police can now use this to check rooms or fire fighters can use it to search unreachable locations in the rubble for survivors.

In my opinion I think this is a great invention as this ball is compact and small thus allowing it to reach places which are too small for a human to get into. This allows people to search in places once deemed as impossible. It also speeds up the process of rescuing trapped victims in disasters as rescuers can now use these to search for victims rather than digging aimlessly in search for victims. However I think that this technology if in the wrong hands can also be very dangerous, terrorist can now use this to gain information in restricted areas as this camera is small and hard to detect. On a lighter note, the paparazzi can also make use of such technology to spy on celebrities, thus compromising their privacy.

A bigger earth discovered? By Soon Qi Wei

        Astronomers have discovered a new planet which lies 42 light years away from our earth. Although it is seven times the size of our earth, scientist say that it is highly possible  for water to be present there, which would also mean that it is habitable. This could be a new scientific breakthrough as it could mean having other living organisms populating that planet.
              Personally, I believe this is a very important piece of information. If anything were to happen to our earth in the future, instead of perishing together with the planet, we could use advanced technology to travel to other planets which have suitable conditions to sustain life. With global warming and other global problems on the rise, this is a research that is definitely necessary worth investing in. As our earth is already so damaged by man, other alternatives must be sought out to ensure our survival if anything were to happen on our planet. This way, if the many laws and rules fail to protect our mother earth, we would still have another alternative.   Click here to view full article!!

By Lim Kay Kiat What roles do parents and friends play in the life of teenagers?

Friends are often shape how a teenager grows up to be. Research conducted recently by a well-known institute has shown that teenagers who mix with friends who are more hardworking tend to achieve better grades. Furthermore, teens who mix with friends who are gangsters often pick up smoking themselves, get involved in fights and join gangs. This is because during this age teens are trying to find an identity for themselves. Teenagers often seek their close friends for support and help. Sometimes these friends might give the inappropriate form of support the teenager needs. For example when a teenager is feeling down or stressed, his friend might encouraging him to smoke or drink alcohol so as to get “high” or to drown his sorrows. This in turn might get teenager hooked onto alcohol or smoking which might become a habit which carries on to the teenager’s adult life. A teenager’s friends are like the molds which form the teenager.

One role of parents in the life of teenagers is that of providing a moral compass. (Topic sentence) Teenagers are most easily influenced during their teen years; mostly by their peers. Thus, it is very important that parents teach their teenage children the right values and lead them on the right path as parents are the ones who spend the most time with their teenagers. For example, recently the news has reported that illegal money loaners have exploit the naivety of teens and employed them to distribute flyers to promote their illegal money lending businesses. Besides, it is the duty as parents to impart the right values the child needs to learn so that they can grow up to be useful citizens and contribute positively to the society. Thus a role of a parent is to be the moral compass of teenagers.

What roles do parents and friends play in the life of teenagers? By Soon Qi Wei

One role of parents in the life of teenagers is that of providing a moral compass for the teenagers. As parents are the people teenagers see most of the time, they are one of the most influential people in the teenager’s lives. Recently, the straits times reported that loan sharks have recruited teenagers to help them distribute illegal flyers. This shows how naïve teenagers are and how they are not mature enough to make their own decisions. Therefore, parents have huge roles and responsibilities to keep their child on the right path. Furthermore, if a teenager builds up good moral values at home, in the public and in society, good moral values would come very naturally as it is well practiced at home.          

One role of friends in the life of teenagers is that of providing support and comfort to one another. Friends play an important part in a teenager’s life as friends are there to provide support when he is in need of help. When a teenager is discouraged by bad test results or poor performances in CCAs, friends are there to help cheer him up. However, it is not wise to rely completely on friends for support as friends might offer the wrong comfort. For example, many teenagers are led astray by friends who offer a cigarette or a cup of beer to relax him. This shows how friends can provide the wrong comfort to a teenager.

Talking elephant mimics Korean with help of his trunk

An elephant living in a zoo in Asia, learned to mimic human speech (in Korean) and had astounded numerous scientists.The elephant named Koshik, placed the tip of his trunk into his mouth to transformed his natural low rumble into a convincing impression of a human voice. A limited but diverse number of species are capable of hearing a sound, copying it and then reproducing it. The elephant is one of the species which is able to produce it. Scientists say that understanding how and why some animals make sounds could help us to understand how speech evolved.

I believe this new discovery is a stepping stone for mankind as who knows, elephants would be able to communicate and cooperate with us.This enables us to do many things that humans are not capable of doing so, like lifting big objects.

Argumentative Essay - Is multiracial diversity a strength or a weakness?

As Singapore develops further, there are more people migrating in because of the clean and green environment, great tourist attractions and many job opportunities. This leads to a multiracial diversity in Singapore. I believe that this is a weakness for the country. 

As there are more people migrating in, there would be more foreign talent in Singapore which would not be able to give Singaporeans a chance and opportunity to show and prove what they are capable of doing. Therefore, as time goes by, the country would have too many foreigners who have stable jobs unlike the Singaporeans. I believe that the opportunities should be given to the Singaporeans as citizens of the country.