What is TED?

[1] TED is a nonpartisan nonprofit foundation

devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form

of short, powerful talks. TED began in 1984 as

a conference where Technology,

[5] Entertainment and Design converged, and

today covers almost all topics — from science

to business to global issues — in more than 110

languages. Meanwhile, independently run

TEDx events help share ideas in communities

[10] around the world. TED believes passionately

that ideas have the power to change attitudes,

lives, and ultimately, the world. This

underlying philosophy is the driving force

behind all of TED’s endeavors, including the

[15] TED Conferences, TEDx, TED Books, the

TED Fellows Program, and the TED Open

Translation Project. With this philosophy in

mind, and with the intention of supporting

teachers and sparking the curiosity of learners

[20] around the world, TED-Ed was launched in

2012.

What is TED-Ed?
TED-Ed is TED’s youth and education

initiative. TED-Ed’s mission is to spark and

[25] celebrate the ideas of teachers and students

around the world. Everything we do supports

learning — from producing a growing library

of original animated videos, to providing an

international platform for teachers to create

[30] their own interactive lessons, to helping

curious students around the globe bring TED to

their schools and gain presentation literacy

skills, to celebrating innovative leadership

within TED-Ed’s global network of over

[35] 250,000 teachers. TED-Ed has grown from an

idea worth spreading into an award-winning

education platform that serves millions of

teachers and students around the world every

week.

[40] What are TED-Ed Originals?
TED-Ed Originals are our signature

content: short, award-winning animated videos

about ideas that spark the curiosity of learners

everywhere. Every TED-Ed Original

[45] represents a creative collaboration between

experts. Such experts may include TED

Speakers and TED Fellows, as well as

educators, designers, animators, screenwriters,

directors, science writers, historians,

[50] journalists and editors. These original

animated videos, paired with questions and

resources, make up what we refer to as

TED-Ed Lessons.
(Fonte:www.ted.com)

Susan Calvin had been born in the year 1982, they said, which made her seventy five now. Everyone knew that. Appropriately enough, U. S. Robot and Mechanical Men, Inc. was seventy-five also, since it had been in the year of Dr. Calvin’s birth that Lawrence Robertson had first taken out incorporation papers for what eventually became the strangest industrial giant in man’s history. Well, everyone knew that, too. (…)

She went back to her desk and sat down. She didn’t need expression on her face to look sad, somehow.

“How old are you?” she wanted to know.

“Thirty-two,” I said.

“Then you don’t remember a world without robots.

There was a time when humanity faced the universe alone and without a friend. Now he has creatures to help him; stronger creatures than himself, more faithful, more useful, and absolutely devoted to him. Mankind is no longer alone. Have you ever thought of it that way?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t. May I quote you?”

“You may. To you, a robot is a robot. Gears and metal; electricity and positrons. Mind and iron! Human-made! If necessary, human-destroyed! But you haven’t worked with them, so you don’t know them. They’re a cleaner, better breed than we are.”

TEXTO:

Genealogy
Genealogy — finding out about your family
history — is one of the most popular hobbies in Europe.
There seems to have been strong interest in tracing our
ancestry recently, and across the continent people are
[5] discovering their roots. Some of these people were
adopted and are now trying to find their biological parents,
but many are driven by a chance to learn more about
where they fit in to their family’s past.
It is not surprising that the rise in popularity of
[10] genealogy is closely linked to the technological
revolution — there are hundreds, probably thousands of
websites offering to help make the work easier for you.
Society has changed too. We no longer live in close
communities because many people have had to move far
[15] from their hometowns in search of work. After the initial
excitement of moving to a new town or city, people have
a tendency to want to rediscover their identity.
So how do you do it? It might seem obvious, but
many people forget that they can find out a lot by speaking
[20] to older family members. Call up an old aunt — or pay
her a visit. Older relatives are usually more than willing to
talk about the past. Many families have a Bible or a
photograph album with important names and dates written
in it. Keep a careful record of all the information you find.
[25] When you have learned all you can, the next step
is to search official records. You can often do this at your
local town hall, courthouse, or church. The websites
mentioned earlier might be able to do this for you, but
you will probably have to pay to access their databases.

[30] Researching your ancestry is not easy. If you’re
planning to look back more than three generations, you
need to be prepared. There will be many hours searching
on a computer, on microfilm, or in public offices. You
might have to go long periods of time without making any
[35] significant discoveries, or it could be worse — you might
find that your ancestors were not very nice people at all!
(Adapted from “Q Skills For Success Level 2 Unit 5”, Oxford University Press)

Esse infográfico mostra fatos interessantes sobre o café.

Health and illness in Shakespeare

Sylvia Morris

January 30, 2012

Shakespeare’s interest in all things medical is well known, and Sujata Iyengar’s book Shakespeare’s Medical Language – A Dictionary, published by Continuum, is a successful addition to the literature on the subject, both a fascinating read and a valuable reference work. She casts her net wide, exploring Shakespeare’s own references to medical matters, the work of medical practitioners, symptoms, cures, and remedies, and the development of theoretical medicine.

Part glossary, part encyclopaedia, the book’s written in an easy-to-follow style, cross-referencing words with their own entries printed in bold, encouraging the reader to flip around the book. Most entries are in three parts: a medical description of the subject, Shakespeare’s references to it, and contemporary sources.

You could use the book as a glossary as you read a play: the entry on falling-sickness, for instance, mentioned in Julius Caesar, links the word with others used by Shakespeare: apoplexy, dizziness and palsy. It then directs you to three pages on epilepsy, lists other plays including sufferers (Othello and Macbeth), and quotes the description of Julius Caesar’s epileptic fit.

Starting from Shakespeare’s words, moving from them towards modern definitions, has many advantages. Iyengar doesn’t attempt to link his every mention of illness to a specific modern one, nor does she assume that Shakespeare’s use of medical terms is consistent. Importantly, there is no patronising assumption that twenty-first century western medicine, which separates body and spirit, has all the answers. We may still have much to learn from less sophisticated societies, including Shakespeare’s.

Read the extract and answer question.

A lack of sleep affects your mood
[1] When a person cannot sleep or sleeps only a few hours a
night, a lot of damage is done. A person gets bad-tempered,
loses their drive, feels angry and tired, and also gets bags
under their eyes. Poor sleep can also make a person
[5] emotionally unstable and even affect their immune system.
A good tip to improve the quality of sleep is to avoid heavy
meals at night and to avoid drinking beverages with a high
caffeine content, such as soft drinks and coffee.
Fonte: Maganews

Text

Polar bears

Polar bears live along shores and on sea ice in the icy cold Arctic. When sea ice forms over the ocean in cold weather, many polar bears, except pregnant females, head out onto the ice to hunt seals. Polar bears primarily eat seals. Polar bears often rest silently at a seal's breathing hole in the ice, waiting for a seal in the water to surface. A polar bear may also hunt by swimming beneath the ice.

In fall pregnant polar bears make dens in earth and snowbanks, where they'll stay through the winter and give birth to one to three cubs. In spring the mother emerges from her den followed by her cubs. During that time she will protect them and teach them how to hunt. The U.S., Canada, Denmark, Norway, and the Soviet Union signed an agreement in 1973 to protect polar bears.

X-Rays of Brazil in PISA

(Program for International Student Assessment)

- 61% of Brazilian students are low-performing in Science. In the best cases, they are capable of providing obvious explications.

- In reading, 50% of the country’s students are below the basic proficiency level, which means that, at most, they are capable of recognizing the main idea of a text or the thesis of an author. The mean score in reading for girls is higher than that for boys by 31 points.

- 67.1% of the students are low-performing in Mathematics. In the best case scenario, they can extract information from a single source and use basic algorithms or formulas to solve problems. The average score of boys is superior to that of girls by 18 points.

- 1.9% of Brazilian students who live under disadvantaged socioeconomic conditions can overcome them and their performance in school is higher than expected.

Considering what these results on global education revealed about Brazilian students, fill in the parentheses with T (True) or F (False).

( ) Half of them are low performers in reading.

( ) Boys outperform girls in mathematics.

( ) Most of them can extract relevant information from complex tests.

( ) Over fifty percent of them did badly in Science.

How diversity makes us smarter

Decades of research by organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers show that socially diverse groups (that is, those with a diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation) are more innovative than homogeneous groups. It means being around people who are different from us makes us more creative, more diligent and more hardworking.

It seems obvious that a group of people with diverse individual expertise would be better than a homogeneous group at solving complex, non-routine problems. It is less obvious that social diversity should work in the same way – yet the science shows that it does. This is not only because people with different backgrounds bring new information. Simply interacting with individuals who are different forces group members to prepare better, to anticipate alternative viewpoints and to expect that reaching consensus will take effort.

Diversity of expertise confers benefits that are obvious – you would not think of building a new car without engineers, designers and quality-control experts – but what about social diversity? The same logic applies to social diversity. People who are different from one another in race, gender and other dimensions bring unique information and experiences to bear on the task at hand. A male and a female engineer might have perspectives as different from one another as an engineer and a physicist – and that is a good thing.

The fact is that if you want to build teams or organizations capable of innovating, you need diversity. Diversity enhances creativity. It encourages the search for novel information and perspectives, leading to better decision making and problem solving. Diversity can improve the bottom line of companies and lead to discoveries and breakthrough innovations. Even simply being exposed to diversity can change the way you think.

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