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Complimenting people

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  I like the color of your shirt! Ritu is a three-year-old. I met her at a wedding. When her father introduced me to her, she promptly said, "I like the color of your shirt!” That was an excellent opening for a conversation.  Later, I learned that her parents had taught her not to keep quiet when meeting people but to compliment them on something about them. It is like shaking hands - it makes people feel good.  My wife joined us as we were starting a conversation. Ritu said to her, “You look cute!” This was a good compliment, but you do not expect a three-year-old to say this to a lady as old as her grandmother! However, it worked; my wife remembered it for many days. Many children much older than Ritu have yet to learn the idea of complimenting people. Most adults have yet to learn this, too.   It is good to be honest when you compliment people. For example, at the end of a school class, you might say thanks to your teacher. Say something true like, “I enjoyed the chimpa
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Giant Flying Squirrels of Kerala, India

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  People in Kerala State in South-West India sometimes see giant squirrels flying large distances. Scientists have recorded their flying 150 feet.  They fly like Batman. They usually jump off a tall tree and glide down while moving forward. They spread their four legs, opening out web-like skin between the legs. The skin acts like the wings of a plane and slows down their downward movement. Gliding does not require any action like beating winds up and down.     From 1940 to 1990, no one saw flying squirrels in Kerala, so scientists eagerly searched for them. They feared the Malabar flying squirrel, like the dinosaurs, might become extinct. Finally, searchers found the flying squirrels again. Srinivasan Ramani 
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Natural Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence

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We had close relatives visiting us yesterday. The family included two brilliant girls who attended a good school in Bangalore. We baked a chocolate cake and planned something for the kids to do and have fun learning.  However, it is difficult to surprise Bangalore kids! I told them they were going to learn about Artificial Intelligence and they were going to play with it. They liked the idea, but the older one, who was in the 5th grade at school, already knew about Artificial Intelligence. "AI," she said, adding, "Example: Alexa!" Where did this kid learn that? I found out later that the family gave them something special - a perfect learning environment at home. Both the parents work and commute long hours, but the grandparents take excellent care of them. In particular, they talk a lot to them, so the kids are very articulate.  The parents, who are techies, spend whatever time they can with the kids to ensure that the kid's curiosity is stimulated. The kids ar
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From an ugly caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly

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  Do you know where beautiful butterflies come from? Yes, they do come from tiny butterfly eggs. But if you watch carefully, when a butterfly egg hatches, what comes out is the ugly caterpillar! The caterpillar eats a lot of leaves and builds itself a cocoon. After about two weeks the cocoon bursts open and out flies a butterfly! Click on the link below and see a nice video from Free School. https://youtu.be/TvmQiWpgX5c   The video calls the cocoon as chrysalis. You can click on the following link and see as many as 300 other videos from Free School. https://www.youtube.com/user/watchfreeschool Srinivasan Ramani 20-Sept-23
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Can you plant a seed and get beautiful flowers?

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Photo Credit: Pixabay, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Spring will be here in a few months and plants will start growing as the land warms up! Have you thought of plants you can plant at that time?  We bought some shelled Sunflower seeds to eat last week. They are tasty and give us valuable protein, vitamins and minerals. We will buy some unshelled Sunflower seeds in a few months to plant!  Srinivasan Ramani                     
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Does Ice Sink in Water?

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Photo by: Andreas Weith, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons Drop a cube of ice in a bucket of water and see if it sinks. It will not, because ice is less dense than water. In comparison, rocks are more dense and they sink in water. The fact that ice floats is very good for the fish and us. If ice was denser, lots of it would have sunk and gone to the bottom of lakes and the sea. In many places it would not have melted in that case and would have made the bottom of lakes and the sea very cold. Luckily for us ice floats and melts as soon the air gets warmer in spring.   Srinivasan Ramani 
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Living things are of different kinds

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  Utahcamera at en.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons We say dogs and cats are mammals. That tells us a lot about them. That they have four legs. Mammals give birth to young ones and feed them with milk. They don’t lay eggs like many non-mammals do.   Birds and insects are not mammals and they lay eggs. After many days, the young ones that grow inside the eggs break them and come out. They find their own food even on the day they come out of the eggs!  Now a question: are squirrels’ mammals? Yes, they are. Are squirrels’ rodents? Yes. They are also rodents. What does this mean? Rodents usually have short limbs, small bodies and long tails. They mostly eat plant-based food like nuts. Their front teeth never stop growing.  So, they keep gnawing something or the other to keep the teeth becoming too big!  Srinivasan Ramani
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