<center id="e206k"></center> Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519),painter, sculptor(雕塑家), architect and inventor, is probably the most talented person who ever lived. His most famous painting, the Mona Lisa,sits in the Louvre Museum(盧浮宮), is one of the great art attractions of the world.
The Mona Lisa is famous for the mysterious smile the woman's face. What is the reason for her smile? Some believe that the Mona Lisa is actually a portrait(肖像) of Da Vinci (he)!This is because some of her (face) features are similar to those in one of Da Vinci's self-portraits. They might suggest that the smile is because Da Vinci knows the (true)—where we see a woman, what he painted was a man. Others might suggest she smiles because she has lost her(tooth)! We will never know for sure, but it is fun to guess!
Mona Lisa didn't always sit behind the glass in the Louvre. In 1911 the painting (steal).Many were called in for questioning,(include) the now famous Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.(lucky), two years after the theft, it was discovered. People are now more careful to protect this precious work of art.
These high school study tips will get you in the right direction to get prepared for your final exams, or just for your average, everyday quiz.
Study Alone. Unless you've got a couple of friends who are super-serious about getting down to business, stay away from group study because they may get off-topic pretty quickly.
The place where you study should be quiet, comfortable and free from distractions. Go to your room, close the door and kill as many distractions as possible—like music, television, and even the internet and your phone. If you don't have your own room, consider studying at the library instead.
Eat healthy while you study. If you want to stay sharp while you study, stay away from junk food(垃圾食品). Instead, take studying-friendly foods like dark leafy greens, whole grains, milk, and seafood.They won't help you in the long run. You can instead eat a banana or an apple.
Study all term long. You may always wish to put off studying till the last minute, especially if you tell yourself that anything you try to memorize earlier on won't really stay in your brain. That's not true. Take some time throughout the term to review all of your notes and re-read important passages in your textbook.
A. Get everything you need.
B. Create a perfect study area.
C. Say no to caffeine or energy drinks.
D. Having trouble getting serious about studying for a test?
E. Save the social time till after you've handed in your test.
F. Having no idea what to expect in your first year of high school?
G. It might seem boring, but it'll really keep all those facts in your brain on test day.
Teenagers who talk on the cell phone a lot, and hold their phones up to their right ears, score worse on one type of memory test. That's the finding of a new study. That memory impairment might be one side effect of the radiation(放射線) that phones use to keep us connected while we're on the go.
The teens took memory tests twice, one year apart. Nearly 700 Swiss teens took part in a test of figural memory. This type helps us remember abstract(抽象的) symbols and shapes, explains Milena Foerster. Each time, they had one minute to remember 13 pairs of abstract shapes. Then they were shown one item from each pair and asked to match it with one of the five choices. The study volunteers also took a test of verbal memory. That's the ability to remember words. The two memory tests are part of an intelligence test.
The researchers also surveyed the teens on how they use cell phones. And they got call records from phone companies. The researchers used those records to figure out how long the teens were using their phones.
This allowed the researchers to work out how big radiation exposure(接觸) each person could have got while talking.
A phone user's exposure to the radiation can differ widely. Some teens talk on their phone s more than others. People also hold their phone s differently. If the phone is close to the ear, more radiation may enter the body, Foerster notes.
The teens' scores in the figural memory tests were roughly the same from one year to the next. But those who normally held their phones near the right ears, and who were also exposed to higher levels of radiation, scored a little bit worse after a year. No group of teens showed big changes on the verbal memory test. Why might one type of memory be linked to cell phone use, but not another? Foerster thinks it could have to do with where different memory centers sit in the brain. The site that deals with the ability to remember shapes is near the right ear.
We were driving on the right road when, all of a sudden, a black car pulled out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver stepped on his brake, skidded(打滑), and missed the black car's back end by just inches! The driver of the black car, who almost caused a major accident, turned his head angrily and started shouting bad words at us.
My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. I mean, my taxi driver was friendly. So, I said, "Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to hospital!" And the following is what my taxi driver told me, which I now call "the law of the Garbage Truck".
"Many people are like garbage(垃圾) trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump(傾卸) it. And if you let them, they dump it on you. When someone wants to dump on you, don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish him well, and move on. Believe me. You'll be happier."
So this is "The Law of the Garbage Truck". I started thinking: How often do I let "Garbage Trucks" run right over me? And how often do I take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets? It was then that I said, "I'm not going to do it any more."
I began to see "Garbage Trucks". I see the load they're carrying. I see them coming to drop it off. And like my taxi driver, I don't make it a personal thing; I just smile, wave, and move on.
Good leaders know they have to be ready for their next meeting. Good parents know that they have to welcome their children home from school with hugs and kisses. What about you? The mark of a successful person is how quickly he can get back his focus on what's important.
1. 來校時采用的交通方式；
2. 進校后印象最深的一個地方 (或一件事)。
參考詞匯: 杭州第二中學(xué) Hangzhou No. 2 High School
Social media has been around for years now, and most of us may describe it as any Internet medium(媒體) that can be used to share information with others. But what exactly is so "social" about sitting before a computer blogging(發(fā)博客) for days without anybody reading it, or scrolling(滾屏) through your Facebook feed of information from 500 friends you hardly know? If you ask me, it can be way more anti-social than anything.
Social media is not a "thing". It's not just Facebook, WeChat and Weibo. It's more of a frame of mind(心態(tài)) and a state of being. It's about how you use it to improve your relationships with other people in real life. However, we tend to rely on technology and social media so much that it can actually des troy those relationships.
Social media isn't about numbers. When someone says "social media", web giants like Facebook, Twitter, WeChat and Weibo instantly pop into our minds, often because they have more updates, more friends, more followers, more everything. As the old saying goes, quality over quantity is usually the way to go. So, social media is not just about lots of people aimlessly pushing around lots of information.
Social media needs to have an "IRL" factor——an Internet expression standing for "In Real Life". It should affect how a person thinks or acts offline. After all, social media shouldn't be an end in itself. It was built to improve your actual social life, in real life. Take for example an event that a person attends because they are invited by the host on Facebook through a Facebook event page. Something like that definitely has the IRL factor. Likewise, a WeChat photo that touches someone so much that they feel the need to bring it up and describe it to someone else during a dinner date also has the IRL factor.
In fact, there is no wall between real life and Internet life where true social media exists. Social media is not a specific place on the Internet or just a thing you use to see what other people are doing. It's all about creating meaningful experiences and relationships wherever you may be.
When John Todd was a child, he loved to explore the woods around his house, observing how nature solved problems. A dirty stream, for example, often became clear after flowing through plants and along rocks where tiny creatures lived. When he got older, John started to wonder if this process could be used to clean up the messes people were making.
After studying agriculture, medicine, and fisheries in college, John went back to observing nature and asking questions. Why can certain plants trap harmful bacteria (細(xì)菌)? Which kinds of fish can eat cancer-causing chemicals? With the right combination of animals and plants, he figured, maybe he could clean up waste the way nature did. He decided to build what he would later call an eco-machine.
The task John set for himself was to remove harmful substances from some sludge (污泥). First, he constructed a series of clear fiberglass tanks connected to each other. Then he went around to local ponds and streams and brought back some plants and animals. He placed them in the tanks and waited. Little by little, these different kinds of life got used to one another and formed their own ecosystem. After a few weeks, John added the sludge.
He was amazed at the results. The plants and animals in the eco-machine took the sludge as food and began to eat it! Within weeks, it had all been digested, and all that was left was pure water.
Over the years, John has taken on many big jobs. He developed a greenhouse-like facility that treated sewage (污水) from 1,600 homes in South Burlington. He also designed an eco-machine to clean canal water in Fuzhou, a city in southeast China.
"Ecological design" is the name John gives to what he does. "Life on Earth is kind of a box of spare parts for the inventor," he says. "You put organisms in new relationships and observe what's happening. Then you let these new systems develop their own ways to self-repair."
Humans' overconsumption of resources is a leading contributor to global climate change, says University of Arizona researcher Sabrina Helm. Therefore, it's increasingly important to understand the choices consumers make and how those decisions affect the health of a planet with limited resources. In a new study, published in the journal Young Consumers, Helm and her colleagues explore how materialistic values influence pro-environmental behaviors in millennials, who are now the nation's most influential group of consumers.
The researchers focused on two main categories of pro-environmental behaviors: reduced consumption, which includes actions like repairing instead of replacing older items; and "green buying," or purchasing products designed to limit environmental impacts. The researchers also looked at how engaging in pro-environmental behaviors affects consumer well-being.
More materialistic participants, the researchers found, were unlikely to engage in reduced consumption. However, materialism did not seem to have an effect on their likelihood of practicing "green buying." That's probably because "green buying," unlike reduced consumption, still offers a way for materialists to fulfill their desire to get new items, Helm said.
Study participants who reported having fewer materialistic values were much more likely to engage in reduced consumption. Consuming less was, in turn, linked to higher personal well-being and lower psychological suffering. Green buying—which may have some positive environmental effects, although to a smaller degree than reduced consumption—was not found to improve consumer well-being, Helm said.
The take-home message for consumers: "The key is to reduce consumption and not just buy green stuff. Having less and buying less can actually make us more satisfied and happier," Helm said. "If you have a lot of stuff, you have a lot on your mind," she said. "For example, it requires maintenance and there's a lot of burdens of ownership, and if you relieve yourself of that burden of ownership, most people report feeling a lot better and freer."
Helm and her colleagues additionally looked at how materialism affects millennial consumers' proactive financial behaviors, such as budgeting and saving. Examining financial behaviors alongside pro-environmental behaviors provides a picture of how young adults proactively deal with resource limitations in two contexts: environmental and financial, Helm said.
As expected, Helm and her colleagues found that those who reported having more materialistic values engaged in fewer proactive financial behaviors than their less materialistic counterparts (對應(yīng)的人). The researchers also found that, consistent with previous studies, proactive financial behaviors were associated with better personal well-being, life satisfaction and financial satisfaction, as well as lower psychological suffering.
Understanding how materialistic values impact consumer behaviors, and how those behaviors in turn affect personal and environmental well-being, is important, Helm said. However, she acknowledges that for many consumers, shifting behaviors to be more financially proactive and consume less will be challenging.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) established 23 April World Book and Copyright Day in 1995．However, it got its start long before that in Spain.
Setting aside a day to celebrate books traces its beginnings to Spanish writer Vicente Clavel Andrés. In 1922 he proposed idea as a way to honour Miguel de Cervantes. It was four years later the first celebration took place on 7 October, Cervantes' birthday, but it was moved to 23 April, the date of his death, in 1930．
In 1995, the UNESCO (decide) to pay homage to authors and books worldwide as a way of encouraging everyone (access) books. Choosing 23 April seemed a logical (choose); besides being the date of Cervante's death, it also happens to be the date William Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega died. Additionally, several distinguished authors were born on 23 April, (make) it a symbolic date in the world literature.
(annual) since 2001, one city is chosen to be the UNESCO World Book Capital for a year. The selected city (task) with carrying out activities over its year-long designation to encourage "a culture of reading and diffusing its values in all ages and population groups in and out of the national borders".
The initiative was put forward by Spain in 2001, and Madrid was designated the first capital, (follow) by Alexandria and then New Delhi.
A recent study has found that using wood for construction instead of concrete and steel can reduce emissions. But Tim Searchinger at Princeton University says many of these studies are based on the false foundation that harvesting wood is carbon neutral (碳中和). "Only a small percentage of the wood gets into a timber (木料) product, and a part of that gets into a timber product that can replace concrete and steel in a building," he says. Efficiencies vary in different countries, but large amounts of a harvested tree are left to be divided into parts, used in short-lived products like paper or burned for energy, all of which generate emissions.
In a report for the World Resources Institute, Searchinger and his colleagues have modelled how using more wood for construction would affect emissions between 2010 and 2050, accounting for the emissions from harvesting the wood. They considered various types of forests and parts of wood going towards construction. They also factored in the emissions savings from replacing concrete and steel.
Under some circumstances, the researchers found significant emissions reductions. But each case required what they considered an unrealistically high portion of the wood going towards construction, as well as rapid growth only seen in warmer places, like Brazil. In general, they found a large increase in global demand for wood would probably lead to rising emissions for decades. Accounting for emissions in this way, the researchers reported in a related paper that increasing forest harvests between 2010 and 2050 would add emissions equal to roughly 10 percent of total annual emissions.
Ali Amiri at Aalto University in Finland says the report's conclusions about emissions from rising demand are probably correct, but the story is different for wood we already harvest. "Boosting the efficiency of current harvests and using more wood for longer lived purposes than paper would cut emissions," he says. "We cannot just say we should stop using wood."
