ASK!

No one can say precisely when, how or even why the game of football, or soccer, developed. Games resembling soccer can be traced back as far as the ancient Chinese, Greek, and Roman civilizations. However, the rules of these games differed widely – from the number of players, to the handling of the ball, and the size of the goal.

A standard set of rules was needed, and eventually the English took on the job. In 1863, the English Football Association was formed and it published the “Laws of the Game.” This meant that every team could play by the sames rules, creating the foundation for the way soccer is played today, all over the world.

(Source: Soccer : the ultimate guide by Martin Cloake … [et al.].
Publisher: New York : DK Pub, 2008.
Call no: J 796.334 SOC)

All Rights Reserved, DK Pub; 2008

For more information on soccer, check out the following books:

Football by Clive Gifford
London : Wayland, 2008
J 796.334 GIF

All Rights Reserved, Wayland; 2008

The Bootiful Game by Michael Coleman
London : Scholastic Children’s Books, 2009
Call No.: J 796.334 COL

All Rights Reserved, Scholastic Children’s Books; 2009

Footballers by Liz Gogerly
London : Wayland, 2007
Call No.: J 796.334 GOG

All Rights Reserved, Wayland; 2007

Originally answered by Lynn Ang
Librarian
Children’s Services

The Orange Prize for Fiction was first established in 1996. This is a unique prize as it was awarded to and judged exclusively by women.  You can find out more about this award and its  past winners here.

And now for the winner…*drumrolls*

Marilynne Robinson!    

She picked up the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction for her work ‘Home’.  What is ‘Home’ about? As extracted from the book cover: ’Glory Boughton, age thirty eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother Jack – the prodigal son of the family, gone twenty years- comes home, too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with trouble and pain. Jack is one of the great characters in recent literature. A bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot a job, he is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton’s most beloved child…’

 ’Home’ is available at our public libraries for borrowing. Please check our online catalogue for availability and locations.

  Answered by Yen Yen Toh, Librarian, Adult and Young People’s Services

Found this question interesting? What do you think? Post your comments.
If you have a different question, please email to ask@nlb.gov.sg instead of sending a comment

This blogger posed an interesting scenario, –is time traveling ever possible?http://ngshuhann.blogspot.com/ (Thursday, July 23, “Time Traveller”)

Some of his muses included how time traveling can result in an existential paradox such as: what if you traveled to a time before you were born, can you even exist?

Time traveling has always been an intriguing topic, especially to those who wish to rectify their past actions.

Scientifically speaking however, traveling back in time to the past is an almost improbable feat.

Time traveling to the present however according to Einstein, is only possible, if you travel at the speed of light. This can be explained using the principal of time dilation, which states that as an object approaches the speed of light, time slows down immensely.

For instance, Einstein’s theories predict that the faster a spacecraft moves, the slower time ticks inside of it, therefore, technically, the people outside of the spacecraft, on earth, has “travelled” faster through time as compared to the people in the spacecraft.

Until traveling faster or at the speed of light is made possible for everybody, we should revel in the present! Carpe diem!

In the meantime, check out these fantastic books on the science of time travel!

The new time travelers : a journey to the frontiers of physics by David Toomey
Publisher: New York : W. W. Norton, c2007.
Call Number: English 530.11 TOO

Breaking the time barrier : the race to build the first time machine by Jenny Randles.
Publisher: New York : Paraview Pocket Books, 2005.
Call Number: English 530.11 RAN

Time travel in Einstein’s universe : the physical possibilities of travel through time by J. Richard Gott, III.
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin, c2001.
Call Number: English 530.11 GOT

Posted By:

Chen Wanying
Children’s Librarian
Children’s Services

A leopard’s spots are essential for its survival as it helps the leopard camouflages itself with the savannah landscape, enabling it to catch its prey much easier.

For a mathematical and scientific explanation, leopards have spots due to the “reaction-diffusion” process that is used by animals to generate patterns during their development as an embryo.

According to Alan Turing, a mathematican, animals start out as a single cell which will divide many times over to become a full size individual. It is during this stage of cell division that the patterns of leopards, zebras and giraffes come about.These animals have an embryo with two types of chemicals in it. These two chemicals will interact to generate patterns.

How do the patterns come about? The chemicals in the embryo can diffuse left and right, from an area of high concentration of chemicals to an area of low concentration, thus creating the patterns that you see on leopards, zebras and giraffes.

Source: Dartnell, Lewis (May 2004). How the leopard got its spots. Retrieved August 3, 2009, from Plus Magazine Living Mathematics.
Website: http://plus.maths.org/

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