Raise chicks to combat smartphone addiction

Everything needs to be used in bala­nced whether it is the food you are eating, or your hobby or even a habit. If you do things in excess, they may have toll on your mental and physical health. And these days, not only adults but tweens and teens are seen to be having the internet and cellphone addiction. To combat the growing nuisance, an Indonesian city is giving out pet chicks to 2,000 elementary and middle school students.

The local government in Bandung, West Java, announced students at 12 elementary and middle school students to be given the baby chickens in a bid to give activities that will keep children off the internet and their smartphones.

Mayor Oded Danial said when he proposed the plan in October that raising chicks would also teach the students valuable skills and foster a sense of responsibility. Danial said prizes would also be awarded to the students who raise their chicks into the largest chickens.

Unusual beachfront artwork

A Florida city unveiled an unusual beachfront artwork — a life-sized recreation of a traffic jam sculpted from sand.

The City of Miami Beach commissioned Argentinean artist Leandro Erlich to create Order of Importance, an installation consisting of 66 sand sculptures of cars and trucks lined up on South Beach.

“It’s a poetic version of a traffic jam, and it’s open to the public in a public space,” Erlich told. “It addresses an issue that is linked to our relationship to the natural order, the environment and how important it is to remain in balance in order to survive.”

Electric eel lights Christmas tree

A Tennessee aquarium is harnessing the power of an electric eel to illuminate the lights on a Christmas tree placed next to its tank.

The Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga said a special system was rigged up in the tank housing the eel, named Miguel Mattson, that causes the Christmas tree next to the tank to light up whenever the aquatic creature discharges electricity.

“Whenever Miguel discharges electricity, sensors in the water deliver the charge to a set of speakers,” said Joey Turnipseed, the aquarium’s audio visual production specialist.

“The speakers convert the discharge into the sound you hear and the festively flashing lights.”

Building a Christmas tree from recyclable bottles

A Lebanese town is attempting a Guinness World Record by using tens of thousands of plastic bottles to build a giant Christmas tree sculpture.

The town of Chekka is aiming to use a total 120,000 recyclable water bottles to construct the Christmas tree, and organisers said they have already collected 105,000 bottles toward their goal.

Caroline Chaptini, who organised the project in cooperation with town officials, the Scouts of Lebanon Mar Maroun and the Orthodox Youth Movement, said the goal is to break the previous Guinness World Record, a Christmas tree constructed from 98,000 bottles in Mexico.

Chaptini said the Chekka tree is expected to reach heights of up to 95 feet when it is completed. The project is part of Chaptini’s Collect Them Don’t Waste Them initiative, which aims to promote recycling in the area.

Published in Dawn, Young World, December 14th, 2019