29 de Dezembro de 2019.
A Polish kayaker has known primarily for his long voyages crossing the ocean Aleksander Doba (born 9 September 1946) is a Polish kayaker known primarily for his long voyages crossing oceans. In 2010 and again in 2013 he kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean westward under his own power. The two voyages were the longest open-water kayak voyages ever made. He was named 2014 Adventurer of the Year by National Geographic. In 2017 he completed an eastward kayaking trip across the Atlantic. Doba was the first person to paddle a 7-meter sea kayak across the Atlantic ocean, a voyage that spanned 5394 kilometers. Doba’s first voyage from Senegal to Brazil in 2010 set a record for the longest open-water crossing ever […]
28 de Dezembro de 2019.
Pela primeira vez, os cientistas conseguiram extrair um antigo genoma humano completo a partir de um achado que não era um osso, mas um pequeno pedaço de alcatrão de bétula com 5700 anos. São menos de três centímetros de alcatrão de bétula mastigado por uma mulher há muito, muito tempo, mas foi o suficiente para retirar um genoma humano completo da amostra encontrada no Sul da Dinamarca. A partir deste pedaço de antiga chiclete com 5700 anos os cientistas traçam o retrato provável de uma mulher de pele morena, cabelo escuro e olhos azuis que baptizaram com o nome de Lola. Os resultados da análise revelados na revista Nature Communications fornecem ainda algumas pistas sobre a evolução das bactérias e […]
27 de Dezembro de 2019.
Silent night, holy night – Christmas in Germany When the air starts smelling like roasted almonds, when the city center is immersed in warm lights and when children start to sing their hearts out on the streets, then you know it`s time for one of the most important German Christmas traditions: The Christmas Market. The idea of this pre-Christmas market originates in the Late Middle Ages when people bought goods to prepare for the cold wintertime. Throughout the years also craftsmen, toymakers and confectioners were allowed to sell their products, contributing to the Christmas market as it is today. Traditionally, the market starts in the last week of November and lasting until Christmas Eve. A very curious thing about this […]
26 de Dezembro de 2019.
A alcatifa é feita a partir de materiais têxteis reciclados e, no final do evento, é novamente transformada noutros produtos de gama mais baixa. Uma empresa da Guarda começou este ano a produzir uma alcatifa reciclável, feita a partir de excedentes têxteis, roupas e desperdícios industriais, para utilização específica em recintos de eventos. A startup Karpet2R – Walking to the Future surgiu por iniciativa de Pedro Tavares e João Gonçalves, que também gerem uma empresa de organização de eventos. Segundo Pedro Tavares, a startup de produção de alcatifas recicladas surgiu após verificar que, no final de cada evento organizado, as alcatifas de polipropileno utilizadas eram deitadas fora. “Estamos a falar de quilos e quilos que, no fundo, iam para o […]
25 de Dezembro de 2019.
Some traditions have moved into the background in recent years and others are still very important for the people. Our Christmas starts with the Advent season. It starts four weeks before Christmas day on a Sunday. There we light the first candle from our Advent wreath and every Sunday until Christmas we will light one more candle. So, at Christmas, all four candles will be lit on the Advent wreath. During this time, we have another celebration. On the 6th of December Saint Nicholas visits our houses. He was the bishop of Myra and this is why he has a bishop’s hat and a bishop’s stick. In my hometown, we have this tradition that all girls in the last year […]
24 de Dezembro de 2019.
Viriato e Lusitânia, eis os nomes escolhidos por Portugal para um exoplaneta e a sua estrela. O exoplaneta agora baptizado foi descoberto por uma equipa liderada pelo astrofísico português Nuno Santos. Para comemorar o 100.º aniversário da União Astronómica Internacional (IAU, na sigla em inglês), mais de 110 países organizaram campanhas nacionais para atribuírem nomes a exoplanetas e às suas estrelas hospedeiras. Os resultados desta iniciativa, a IAU100 Name ExoWorlds (Dê Nome a ExoMundos, em português), foram anunciados esta terça-feira numa conferência em Paris. Em Portugal, os nomes escolhidos foram Lusitânia (para a estrela) e Viriato (para o exoplaneta). Esta proposta partiu, de forma independente, de três escolas de Braga, Pombal e da Maia. “Observações astronómicas durante a última geração […]
23 de Dezembro de 2019.
Ireland has a wide number of Christmas traditions steeped in the Gaelic and Catholic heritage of the country. A tradition that was very widespread in the 1970s but which seems to be dying out somewhat and especially in urban areas is the candle in the window. Symbolically the candle represented a welcome to Joseph and Mary as they wandered in search of lodgings. The candle indicated to strangers and especially to the poor that there may be an offering of food in the house within. During the penal times in Ireland Catholic priests were forbidden to perform mass so the candle would also show people passing by that the person in the house was a Catholic believer and mass could […]
23 de Dezembro de 2019.
A criação do PROTransP tem como objectivo “aumentar a oferta de transporte colectiv23o nas comunidades intermunicipais e nos territórios de baixa densidade” O ministro do Ambiente e da Acção Climática disse nesta segunda-feira esperar “um aumento muito expressivo” do transporte público fora das duas áreas metropolitanas (Porto e Lisboa) devido ao novo programa de 15 milhões de euros criado pelo Governo. “Acho que, ao longo próximo ano, e nos anos seguintes, vamos assistir a um aumento muito expressivo dos territórios fora das áreas metropolitanas”, explicou João Pedro Matos Fernandes, em declarações aos jornalistas à margem da cerimónia dos 70 milhões de clientes do Metro do Porto em 2019. O governante referia-se ao Programa de Apoio à Densificação e Reforço da […]
20 de Dezembro de 2019.
Scottish Christmas traditions are very recent because Christmas did not become a public holiday in Scotland until 1958. In 1640 an act in the Scottish Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas, then called Yule. This was because of the Reformation, which saw the country breaking with the Catholic Church and developing a national Kirk (church) which was influenced by Presbyterian outlooks. The attitudes towards celebrations changed after the Reformation leading to them outlawing the celebration of Christmas festivities. Christmas was, therefore, a quiet affair for many years; which meant that Hogmanay (New Year’s Eve) was the biggest festival for the Scottish. Hogmanay includes many traditions such as “first-footing” which is to be the first person to visit a friend after […]
19 de Dezembro de 2019.
Recolha e tratamento de resíduos de equipamentos eléctricos e electrónicos deverá rondar as 70 mil toneladas, longe das 103 mil exigidas pela UE. O Ministério do Ambiente e da Acção Climática estima que a recolha e tratamento de resíduos de equipamentos eléctricos e electrónicos (REEE), em 2019, ronde as 70 mil toneladas, e não as 48 mil toneladas contabilizadas pela associação ambientalista Zero. O esclarecimento do Ministério do Ambiente enviado esta quinta-feira às redacções confirma, assim, que Portugal deverá falhar as metas estabelecidas pela União Europeia, que apontam para a recolha e tratamento de 65% destes componentes perigosos para a saúde e o ambiente. Para atingir esse valor, o país teria de recolher 103 mil toneladas de REEE. No esclarecimento […]
5 de Setembro de 2019.
Marguerite Duras and her book “ Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein” Marguerite Duras was born in 1914 in Gia Dinh next to Saigon in the French Indochina. She is a writer, novelist, playwright, and essayist. She became famous in 1950 with the book “The Sea Wall” (Un barrage contre le Pacifique). This book is largely inspired by the life and adolescence of Marguerite Duras in the French Indochina. After this first success, she will publish many new novels. Her style is close to the New Roman, with strange sentences construction, deconstructed characters, storyline, and timeline. The main topics are the wait, love, sensuality, and alcohol. In 1984 she published another great success “The lover” (L’Amant) an auto-fiction about her […]
3 de Setembro de 2019.
An Austrian author of the 21st century: Marc Elsberg If you are interested in scientific thrillers, Marc Elsberg’s books are always a brilliant choice. It doesn’t matter if you choose Blackout, Zero or Helix – they’re all interesting, exciting and teach you a lot. This is why I like his work and why I always enjoy reading any book he wrote. He was born in 1967 in Vienna, grew up in the surroundings of Baden in Lower Austria and studied Industrial Design at the University for Art in Vienna. Later on, he worked in the marketing business as a creative director while he was starting to write his first book, a satirical novel called “Saubermann”. After three more books, he […]
1 de Setembro de 2019.
A very well known writer in Finland. Kari Hotakainen started his career as a reporter and became a full-time author in 1996. He has written many novels, poetry books, children’s books, radio dramas, newspaper columns, plays, and one TV-series. He has received some literature prizes for his work, for example, the Finlandia Prize for the novel Juoksuhaudantie (Battle Trench Avenue). The same book was later made into a movie. For me, the most meaningful book written by Kari Hotakainen is Satukirja (Storybook). The book is considered for children and young adults, but I think that it suits all ages. All the stories are very imaginative and different. It is a huge possibility, that after reading one story you become addicted […]
31 de Agosto de 2019.
A Polish-British writer, most famous for Heart of Darkness (1899). Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski is known rather as Joseph Conrad which is a combination of his two names. He went to Marseilles as a seventeen-year-old boy to work as a sailor. When he returned from his voyages to the Caribbean and South America, he had troubles with his citizenship, as a resident of the Russian Empire, he was obligated to do military service. Without permission from the Russian authorities to serve on French ships, Joseph fell into debts and consequently he attempted to commit suicide. Later on, he went to Great Britain and began serving in the British merchant navy. After a few years, he received the rank of captain […]
29 de Agosto de 2019.
I’ll talk about the Belgian writer Herman Brusselmans. Why him? To reply in his own style: because this dickpick is probably the most f*cking interesting choice of them all. That’s right. I didn’t choose him because his oeuvre is close to my heart. Neither his high pitched literary style. Still, he is one of the greatest writers of Belgium. How did this come to be? Well, to start with, he is (unlike many colleagues) in front of the media. He keeps himself in the picture through talk shows and columns, where he likes to mock other celebrities and comments on certain situations. This provocative talk is also very typical for his books. The overall style elements are a Highly autobiographical […]
27 de Agosto de 2019.
The Writing Teacher Gerwin van der Werf is not a name that many non-Dutch people know nor are able to pronounce properly. Not a lot of Dutch people know him or his work either. He is not a famous writer of literature that creates complex novels with hidden themes and multiple meanings but he is one of the greatest Dutch writers. He has written four novels, Gewapende Man (2010), Wild (2011), Luchtvissers (2013) en Een Onbarmhartig Pad (2018). Apart from being a writer, he is also a music teacher at the high school I went to in the Netherlands. He is a teacher full of energy, full of empathy for his students and with a great sense of humor. He […]