Recently Read #9

Today I was on msn.com, and I found an article about the top baby names of 2008. The top ten girls names were: 1. Isabella 2. Ava 3. Emily 4. Elizabeth 5. Abigail 6. Madison 7. Emma 8. Addison 9. Madeline 10. Olivia. The top ten boys names were: 1. Aidan 2. Jayden 3. Jacob 4. Michael 5. Ethan 6. Caden 7. James 8. Caleb 9. Andrew
10. Matthew. The article said that Isabella joined the list for the first time ever, which is new, and that this isn't the first year that Aidan has been the top boys name.

Recently Read #8

Recently, I read an article on Aol.com, about the top places people DONT want to live in the U.S. Chicago was the first one- the winters are too cold, and only 8 percent of workers want to move there. The next city was New Orleans- since hurricane Katrina, the murder rate has increased,tourism has suffered, and the population has decreased. Next was Los Angeles- it's exciting, but traffic clogged, polluted, and expensive. Detroit's top two negative attributes were image and health/safety. The last unwanted place to live was New York City- the sky-high rates for small apartments, and long crowded commutes were some negatives shown in the article. I thought this article was interesting because you would think that a lot of these cities were popular and people want to live in them.

Recently Read #7

Today I read an article on cnn.com called "Bring up Baby with safe and green toys". This article was about how to avoid buying toys that aren't safe or environmentally safe. A doctor says that it's a good idea to choose toys that are natural, like wood ones and cotton wool or hemp, because these are safer. The doctor says that toxins can be found in plastic toys, like PVC. This article also talked about safer diapers, foods, etc. I thought this was an interesting article because lots of people donate toys to charity around this time of year, but people might want to think twice about what they donate.

Recently Read #6

Today I came across a list of random facts, so I read it. There were a lot of good ones, and they were pretty interesting too. Some of them were that; Grizzly bears can go up to three weeks without going to the bathroom, Lewis and Clark ate at least 9 bald eagles during their explorations, the most common death of amish men is high blood pressure, and Martin Luther King Jr lip synched most of his I have a Dream speech. I thought that these facts were funny, and I had a good time reading them.

Recently Read #5

I read an article in the New York Times about a new test that can tell parents what sports their small kids will be good at. A company called Genetics offers a test that cost 149$. It's simple, all they do is swab the inside of the kid's cheek for DNA, and then send it into a lab to get the ACTN3 analyzed, which is a gene. This test is supposed to tell if a kid could be better at speed and power sports (football/sprinting), or at endurance sports (distance running). This test is pretty accurate, but experts don't want people to depend on them. More research should be done, and these tests might not even affect anything. I think that parents shouldn't base everything their kids do off these tests, and kids should try everything to see what their best at, so that they have more experience and more fun.

Recently Read #4

Recently, I have read an editorial in the New York Times about the Frank R. Lautenberg train station off the New Jersey turnpike. 450 million dollars were spent building this station, but there isn't a parking lot anywhere near it. Anyone that wants to drive to it, can't, so the station is very underused. They also spent millions on a long exit ramp off the turnpike to get to the station, but if you can't park at the station, then why would you use the exit ramp. I think that this is kind of pointless and a waste of money, and the people who designed it should have spent more time planning it out. This article is good to be out on the internet though, because now architects and other designers might think these things out before they build them.