Dubai has begun work on a new $35 billion airport terminal that will become the world's busiest when it's finished, according to the state's ruler.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said that the new terminal at Al Maktoum International airport will one day handle up to 260 million passengers per year.

But if that sounds like a travel nightmare, the CEO of Dubai Airports has different ideas. Paul Griffiths said that at the 400-gate airport there will be less walking, less waiting and no queues.

Griffiths said that airports around the world have gotten lazy and this one will change the way airports work.

His plan includes having security and passport checkpoints spread out around the terminal to save people time.

But 260 million is a lot of passengers. It's more than double the number that used the world's busiest airport in 2023. Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, handled 105 million passengers last year.

Dubai International Airport (DXB), the state's main airport at the moment, was second in that list with 87 million passengers.

However, all of that traffic will move to Al Maktoum over the next few years, according to Sheikh Mohammed.

Al Maktoum, which first opened in 2010, will be five times bigger than DXB when it's finished.

It's not only at the airport that building is taking place. Sheikh Mohammed said that an "entire city" will be built in the area around the airport, with homes for a million people.

"Dubai will be the world's airport," he said on X, and the world's "new global center."

Practice Listening, Reading & Comprehension

Dubai Starts Work on 'World's Busiest' Airport

Swedish furniture company IKEA has opened a new store.

There's nothing strange about that. But wait a minute — the new store is inside a video game. And it's paying real people to work there!

IKEA advertised for 10 positions in a virtual store it has opened in Roblox — and got more than 178,000 applications!

Roblox is a popular online gaming platform that lets users play games and create their own.

IKEA has created The Co-Worker Game on the platform. And it needed some employees.

At the start of June, IKEA began looking for people aged 18 and over in the UK and Ireland to work as paid members of staff at the in-game store.

It said staff would help customers, and would be able to get promoted and move departments, just like in real life.

The company said it wanted to show that it does things a little differently.

Wes Davis from technology website The Verge called it a "weird" but "harmless" idea.

He said he'd never heard of other companies paying people to work in a game, but added that US company Walmart has already created a game on Roblox.

IKEA said its employees would be paid a little over $16.50 per hour during their work-from-home shifts, which is about the same as the company's other workers get paid in the UK.

The store opened on June 24. It's not clear how long the workers will be employed for, although the company said the positions would be on a "limited contract."

It also said anyone who didn't get a job could still experience the virtual store and win in-game prizes.

IKEA Pays People Real Money to Work in Video Game

People in Switzerland eat more chocolate than anyone else in the world.

According to data from World Population Review, the average Swiss person eats nearly 9 kilograms of chocolate a year — almost twice as much as people in America.

So it might be no surprise that a Swiss university is doing research on chocolate — looking for ways to make it healthier and better for the planet!

Chocolate is made using cocoa beans, which grow in pods on the cacao tree. Each pod holds 20 to 60 seeds — or beans — that are covered in sweet white pulp.

Researchers from the university ETH Zurich have found a way to mix the pulp with part of the pod to make a sweet gel, which can be used instead of the powdered sugar that's usually added to cocoa beans when making chocolate.

Typical dark chocolate might be made of 30% to 40% powdered sugar. Testing different recipes, the researchers found they could make chocolate that was up to 20% gel and about as sweet as chocolate with 5% to 10% powdered sugar.

The new chocolate also had 20% more fiber and 30% less saturated fat than typical European dark chocolate — meaning it's healthier to eat.

Main study writer, Kim Mishra, told The Guardian that the new chocolate has a fruitier taste than typical dark chocolate — although it also tastes more acidic.

The researchers said using parts of the cocoa plant that are usually thrown away reduces waste, while using the new gel would let cocoa farmers get money not just from their beans, but by selling the pulp and pod parts needed for the gel as well.

It may be a while before we can try this chocolate for ourselves. However, ETH Zurich has already filed a patent for the recipe.



Scientists Make Healthier, Less Wasteful Chocolate

If robots do take over the world, this one probably won't be the leader.

Less than 5.8 centimeters tall — a little shorter than a lighter — it has been recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's smallest humanoid robot.

Humanoid robots look and act like humans. For the Guinness record, they must be able to move their shoulders, elbows, knees and hips, and also be able to walk.

Made by a Japanese student named Mitsuya Tatsuhiko, this one is less than half the size of the previous holder of the world record, which was made by students from Hong Kong.

Tatsuhiko is a postgraduate student at Nagoya Institute of Technology, where he researches crawler robots. Crawler robots don't look like humans, however, and they're used to inspect places that are hard to get to.

Tatsuhiko has been interested in robots since he was a child.

According to Guinness World Records, he built his first humanoid robot when he was 10.

He didn't spend as much time making them during high school, but he has returned to his passion as he has gotten older.

It took him a few tries to get his record-breaking robot right, and he worked hard to make it as small as he could.

He applied for the record with his third attempt while he was in the fourth year of his degree. He said he was very happy to have broken the record.

Tatsuhiko hopes to work with robots when he finishes university, but he'll also keep making them at home as a hobby.