$100 Laptop: this is not a toy.

When the idea of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) — popularly known as $100 Laptop — was first announced in 2005, nobody thought it was possible. Two years later in November 2007 the little computer that could went into mass production in China, and is now called the XO laptop. Read the whole article clicking here. Also, watch the presentation of this surprising laptop. Very interesting material.

Handwriting

Does your handwriting reveal aspects of your personality? Listen to an interview with an expert on the topic here, do a listening comprehension quiz by clicking here, and read the tapescript here to have a good look at vocabulary and expressions. Have fun.

Christmas Routine

Listen to this dialogue about Christmas traditions in Canada. You can also read the script by clicking on "transcript" on the web page, and do a listening comprehension quiz as well. Click here, and get to work. Merry Christmas!

Darwin´s Surprise

When the sequence of the human genome was fully mapped in 2003, researchers discovered that our bodies are littered with fragments of retroviruses. These dangerous viruses managed to embed themselves in the DNA of our ancestors millions of years ago. They are called endogenous retroviruses, because once they infect the DNA of a species they become part of that species. One by one, though, after molecular battles that raged for thousands of generations, they have been defeated by evolution. Like dinosaur bones, these viral fragments are fossils and they reside within each of us, carrying a record that goes back millions of years. Read the complete article by clicking here, and listen to its audio version here. Excellent material for those of you interested in science and evolution.

World population in real time

Do you want to know how our population increases by the second? Click here and see by yourself!