Kids News - Articles for Grades 11-11

The Atlantic hurricane season, which spans from June 1 to November 30, had been relatively calm this year, with just one major storm in July. That changed at the end of August, when Dorian, a Category 5 hurricane, came screaming through, leaving a trail of destruction all the way from the US Virgin Islands to the Bahamas and the US and Canadian east coasts....

On Wednesday, September 11, 2019, Americans will commemorate the 18th anniversary of one of the most tragic days in modern US history. On September 11, 2001, 19 members of the Islamic extremist organization Al Qaeda conducted a series of brutal, well-orchestrated attacks on American soil. In addition to cutting short the lives of 2,977 innocent people, the tragedy also set in motion events that would change the course of life both in the US and worldwide....

If you have been paying any attention to the news, you may have heard of the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong. Since June 2019, pro-democracy protestors have brought large areas of the bustling Chinese territory to a standstill with weekly demonstrations and sit-ins. Among the most disruptive was the August 12 protest at the Hong Kong International Airport. Thousands of dissenters barricaded the airport's passageways with luggage trolleys, metal barriers, and other objects, blocking passengers from boarding and forcing the cancellation of outbound flights for two consecutive days. So what has triggered the widespread discontent against the Beijing government? Read on . . ....

It is not uncommon for human-generated blazes — lit to clear the land out for farming or ranching — in the Amazon rainforest to get out of control. However, this year, the number of wildfires has been extraordinarily high. Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) has recorded over 73,000 fires in the world's largest tropical rainforest between January and August 2019, 2,500 of which are currently active. This is the highest number observed since the agency began keeping records in 2013, and an astounding 80 percent more than during the first eight months of 2018....

In addition to their myriad other responsibilities, the brave Mars pioneers will also have to be ready to deal with all kinds of medical emergencies. Some ailments, such as common colds and headaches, may be easy to tackle with medication. To help them with more serious issues, like severe skin burns or bone fractures, scientists from the Dresden University of Technology (TUD) have developed a 3-D bioprinter capable of producing human tissue in space....

It is common knowledge that the droplets spread from sneezing are one of the key culprits responsible for transmitting infectious diseases between humans. Now it turns out that some plants have a similar ability to share the "love" and spread pathogens to each other. However, while sneezing in humans is an involuntary response to irritants along the lining of the nose, plants "sneeze" due to a quirk in fluid dynamics....

Fiona Kolbinger, a 24-year-old with little experience in competitive cycling, took the world by surprise when she became the first female to win the ultra-endurance Transcontinental Race on August 6, 2019. The cancer researcher from Germany outrode 225 men and 39 women to complete the approximately 2,485 miles (4,000 km) race from Bulgaria to France in 10 days, two hours, and 48 minutes. Even more impressive, Kolbinger crossed the finish line almost 11 hours ahead of the second-place winner, Ben Davies of the United Kingdom....

From July 26 to July 28, 2019, New York's Arthur Ashe Stadium hosted the biggest video game competition of all time — the Fortnite World Cup. The event, witnessed by a live audience of over 23,000 and more than 2 million fans online, was the culmination of a 10-week qualification process that whittled down the approximately 40 million hopefuls to the final 200 competitors. In a true testament to the game's universal appeal, the contestants hailed from 34 countries and ranged in age from 13 to 24....

Japan, the host country of the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, has promised to deliver "the most innovative Games ever organized." On July 24, 2019, a year before the competition begins in Tokyo on July 24, 2020, the Olympic Committee unveiled its first ingenious idea — medals made using precious metals extracted from discarded electronics....