Merry Xmas

Xmas

Xmas is a common abbreviation of the word Christmas . The letter "X" is not of Latin origin it comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός ( xus=christus) which comes into English as "Christ". And the "-mas" part is from the Latin-derived Old English word for Mass.

Read an article Сhristmas is here  by www.newsinlevels.com

Emotions in English

Take into account that feelings, emotions and various types of state are uncountable nouns in English!

Feelings, emotions: anger, anxiety, calm, compassion, confidence, courage, curiosity, despair, determination, disappointment, enthusiasm, envy, excitement, forgiveness, happiness, hatred, jealousy, kindness, joy, love, patience, pleasure, sadness, pride, sensitivity, sincerity, sorrow, sympathy, tolerance, trust, uncertainty.	Чувства, эмоции: гнев, беспокойство, спокойствие, сострадание, уверенность, храбрость, любопытство, отчаяние, решимость, разочарование, энтузиазм, зависть, волнение, прощение, счастье, ревность, доброта, радость, любовь, терпение, удовольствие, печаль, гордость, чувствительность, искренность, горе, сочувствие, терпимость, доверие, неуверенность.
Various types of state: health, sleep, silence, laughter, stress, sanity, insanity, motherhood, childhood, youth, old age.	Различные виды состояния: здоровье, сон, молчание, смех, стресс, здравомыслие, безумие, материнство, детство, юность, старость.

Possessive case of nouns

Explanation of using Possessive case of nouns in English see on www.eng-tutor-online.ru and on www.native-english.ru
Try exercises:
english.lingolia.com

Health

Health is a topic of constant concern these days. Health problems today have two branches: biomedicine and public health. Biomedicine or health care involves doctors and other hospital workers, who diagnose and treat individuals who are already sick with pharmaceutical drugs and surgeries. 

  On the other hand, public health deals with the public, community, and society as a whole. The governments fail to recognize the importance of public health. They put millions of into biomedical health care while little is being spent o they spend little on n public health. It is about prevention, environment, and social justice. Prevention is to solve problems before they become problems. For example, vaccination and education of hygiene help preventing diseases in our society.

Environment has an impact on our health. Environment includes social, cultural, and political issues. For instance, if there were many liquor stores in your neighborhood, one would have a high chance to be an alcoholic. Even the wealthiest nation in the world still does not have a universal health care system.

Укажите, какой части текста (1, 2, 3) соответствует следующая информация: Officials spend little sum on public health.

Определите, является ли утверждение “Environment problems have impact on business world”верным (‘true’, ‘false’, ‘not in text’).

Study: Earth Has More Than 3 Trillion Trees

According to a new study published today in Nature, there are 3,041 billion trees on our planet, but over 15 billion trees are cut down each year, and the global number of trees has fallen by 46 percent since the start of human civilization.

More about this interesting news you can read here 

Selfie

"Selfie" is now a new official word according to the Oxford Dictionary. Selfie is a picture of a person taken by himself. Lots of people nowadays are funs of taking them and sharing on a social sites.

And what about you? Do you like?

Test yourself - Body parts

Here you can test your vocabulary. The instructions to this interactive activity is :1- Look at the words and think of its meaning and pronunciation. 2- Move your mouse over the black button to check your answer. 3- If you were right, click on the green button, if wrong, click on the red.

Avalanches

While avalanches are sudden, the warning signs are almost always numerous before they let loose. Yet in 90 percent of avalanche incidents, the snow slides are triggered by the victim or someone in the victim's party. Avalanches kill more than 150 people worldwide each year. Most are snowmobilers, skiers, and snowboarders.

Many avalanches are small slides of dry powdery snow that move as a formless mass. These "sluffs" account for a tiny fraction of the death and destruction wrought by their bigger, more organized cousins. Disastrous avalanches occur when massive slabs of snow break loose from a mountainside and shatter like broken glass as they race downhill. These moving masses can reach speeds of 80 miles (130 kilometers) per hour within about five seconds. Victims caught in these events seldom escape. Avalanches are most common during and in the 24 hours right after a storm that dumps 12 inches (30 centimeters) or more of fresh snow. The quick pileup overloads the underlying snowpack, which causes a weak layer beneath the slab to fracture. The layers are an archive of winter weather: Big dumps, drought, rain, a hard freeze, and more snow. How the layers bond often determines how easily one will weaken and cause a slide.

Storminess, temperature, wind, slope steepness and orientation (the direction it faces), terrain, vegetation, and general snowpack conditions are all factors that influence whether and how a slope avalanches. Different combinations of these factors create low, moderate, considerable, and high avalanche hazards.

If caught in an avalanche, try to get off the slab. Not easy, in most instances. Skiers and snowboarders can head straight downhill to gather speed then veer left or right out of the slide path. Snowmobilers can punch the throttle to power out of harm's way. No escape? Reach for a tree. No tree? Swim hard. The human body is three times denser than avalanche debris and will sink quickly. As the slide slows, clear air space to breathe. Then punch a hand skyward.

Once the avalanche stops, it settles like concrete. Bodily movement is nearly impossible. Wait—and hope—for a rescue. Statistics show that 93 percent of avalanche victims survive if dug out within 15 minutes. Then the survival rates drop fast. After 45 minutes, only 20 to 30 percent of victims are alive. After two hours, very few people survive.